BIOS/EUFI Confusion

I am so confused about BIOS and EUFI. I have an MSI-7721 motherboard with AMD A8-5600K processor. I know the BIOS Mode is "legacy". I've decided to upgrade one or both because I can no longer install any newer linux distro (and I've tried plenty, including trying nomodeset).

Can I assume that all new motherboards are EUFI compatible? Specifically, I'm looking at either a MSI X570-A Pro Motherboard and installing the AMD A8 on it -or- MSI Pro Max AMD B450 AM4 ATX DDR4-SDRAM Motherboard.

Will either of these allow me to install a new linux distro? What do you recommend? I am a mid-level user who likes working on graphics and animation.

Many thanks
Kevin

The only confusion I can see in your question is the spelling. It's UEFI, not EUFI. What else confuses you? Personally, what confuses me is the unclear definition of the term BIOS. Some people distinguish between BIOS and UEFI, others use BIOS as a generic term for "pre-boot environment" and distinguish between "legacy BIOS" and "UEFI BIOS".

Apart from embedded systems and boards like Raspberry Pi, I would say UEFI is pervasive.

Can you install Linux on those boards? Most likely yes, but some of their features may be inaccessible from Linux for lack of drivers. On the MSI forum you encounter posts like https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?t...g-plus.329552/ (not sure if it's the same board as the one you are considering).

Originally Posted by klwilcoxon I've tried plenty, including trying nomodeset

How do you define "plenty"? Exactly which distros and versions did you try? I find it hard to believe one cannot be found that will install in either legacy or UEFI mode. Maybe you should describe in more detail how you went about trying to install.

the simplest was to (for me) to look at BIOS and UEFI is that they both contain code that is embedded in the motherboard. Either its BIOS firware or UEFI formware

generally PC's with Windows 10 on them will be 64 bit UEFI a hard drive with a gpt partition table and a partition of circa 100MB w with file type EF00




Old PC's will use the 512 bytes on the MBR as a starter for boot as stage one, some with stage 1.5 and then stage 2 which can be on partition of root install.

As far as I understand it if you have BIOS firmware you go with MBR as part of say grub install.



So basically its either one or the other and that basically dictates your choices. I think I read somewhere you CAN have a gpt partition table with none UEFI

klwilcoxon

I am just as confused as you are, since your problem appeared to have been resolved under this previous thread:


https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...er-4175657976/

Originally Posted by klwilcoxon I know the BIOS Mode is "legacy".

Then you can forget about (U)EFI.
Problem solved.

klwilcoxon,

All recent motherboards use UEFI. Generally there is a choice of either UEFI or UEFI + Legacy mode, exactly the same as your MSI A78M-E35 (7721).

Your current board uses DDR3 RAM. Both the newer boards you mentioned use DDR4 RAM.

If you are planning to build a new desktop PC then this blog may be useful:
https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...og.php?b=38257

Also look here:
https://pcpartpicker.com/guide/

https://www.techrepublic.com/article...nder-1000-usd/

Personally I would save money and use the B450 instead of the X570.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonev.../#6307b2f02386

I wish people could at least agree about terminology! Some people practically get flamed when they call a UEFI a BIOS in a forum. I've read plenty of online guides too that rapped people's knuckles for using the wrong term. Yet the user manual for my machine calls the pre-boot environment the BIOS even though it's actually a UEFI. Obviously whoever wrote it wanted to use a word that users were more likely to be familiar with and to hell with accuracy! What's a poor newbie to think?!

@captain sensible. Yes, you can use a gpt disk with a traditional BIOS or with a UEFI in legacy mode. But if you're going to boot with GRUB, you will need to have a special BIOS boot partition to contain the main part of it, because gpt disks don't have the magic gap that GRUB usually goes into.

This link should help to clarify any confusion:

Legacy vs UEFI vs Legacy+UEFI：Which One Should You Choose?

https://www.diskpart.com/kb/boot-fro...y-or-uefi.html

That article says that UEFI boot doesn't include a self-test. That is definitely not true. My Lenovo does a normal POST as soon as it is switched on and then bleeps once before going onto the boot stage.

My Lenovo laptop is UEFI and I installed the latest Ubuntu without any issues. I even installed VirtualBox which adds some kernel modules, which the installer did for me. Then on reboot I got the menu asking to give the ok for that, and all went through perfectly.