I've had several discussions with IBM RE: U-EFI, the "Open Source" version of the EFI standard released by Intel. Their new eX5 x86 line is all EFI.
The two points that hit me as significant were: - This standard's biggest benefit effectively obsoletes the IRQ base interrupt system, eliminating the IRQ sharing problems and conflicts that plaque the platform today. - The second benefit is that it can make the hardware architecture and it's drivers independent from the OS. So a n EFI Byte Code based device driver could, in the future, be platform independent [e. g. AIX on x86, Sun SPARC, on x86, MVS, CICS, zOS, etc on U-EFI x86. This is still a little way off.] As I understand it, there will / is still a BIOS, but it is vastly smaller and different what we know today as a BIOS. It will not have any of the memory address limitations and IRQ issues of current BIOS architectures. Also, EFI allows for manipulation of components previously relegated to BIOS config screens like boot device order. These are now configurable via the running OS. As it happens, IBM and Intel are hosting another briefing: Join Intel and IBM on April 15: Registration: http://www.ibm.com/systems/x86tour St. Louis Hilton Frontenac 1335 South Lindbergh Blvd. Room: Clayton Ballroom St. Louis, Missouri 63131 Cheers; E! . On Mon, Apr 5, 2010 at 08:03, Scott Granneman <[email protected]> wrote: > I would search Apple's website, as it, in typical Apple fashion, got on that > train early & have been using it for several years. > > Scott > > Sent from my iPhone > -- > Scott Granneman > [email protected] > > On Apr 5, 2010, at 7:00 AM, Robert Citek <[email protected]> wrote: > >> What is EFI? Or more importantly, what does EFI do? >> >> The new Asus eeepc 1005hab that I got has a hard drive that looks like >> this: >> >> $ sudo fdisk -clu /dev/sda >> >> Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes >> 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders, total 312581808 sectors >> Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes >> Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes >> I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes >> Disk identifier: 0x845a4551 >> >> Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System >> /dev/sda1 * 63 40965749 20482843+ 7 HPFS/NTFS >> /dev/sda2 302246910 312496379 5124735 1c Hidden W95 FAT32 >> (LBA) >> /dev/sda3 312496380 312576704 40162+ ef EFI (FAT-12/16/32) >> >> The machine comes with Windows XP. /dev/sda1 is where WinXP is >> installed. sda2 has a Ghost image and files necessary to reinstall >> XP. Notice that /dev/sda3 is labeled as an EFI partition. What does >> that mean? >> >> I've been reading about EFI and it sounds interesting, but I can't >> find the answers to my questions. It seems to sit between the BIOS >> and the OS. Is it an extension to BIOS? Does the machine need the >> EFI partition in order to boot or can I remove it? That is, if I wipe >> the drive while installing Ubuntu will the machine become unbootable? >> Can I move the partition elsewhere? Does EFI enable certain hardware >> functions and, if so, how do I access them? Is EFI just an >> alternative to a boot loader, e.g. Grub? >> >> What I've read so far: >> >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Firmware_Interface >> http://www.intel.com/technology/efi/ >> >> Thanks in advance for any pointers that clarify what EFI does and what >> I can do with it. >> >> Regards, >> - Robert >> >> -- >> Central West End Linux Users Group (via Google Groups) >> Main page: http://www.cwelug.org >> To post: [email protected] >> To subscribe: [email protected] >> To unsubscribe: [email protected] >> More options: http://groups.google.com/group/cwelug >> >> To unsubscribe, reply using "remove me" as the subject. > > -- > Central West End Linux Users Group (via Google Groups) > Main page: http://www.cwelug.org > To post: [email protected] > To subscribe: [email protected] > To unsubscribe: [email protected] > More options: http://groups.google.com/group/cwelug > -- Central West End Linux Users Group (via Google Groups) Main page: http://www.cwelug.org To post: [email protected] To subscribe: [email protected] To unsubscribe: [email protected] More options: http://groups.google.com/group/cwelug
