On Tue, Apr 5, 2022 at 6:55 PM Jared Dominguez <jar...@redhat.com> wrote: > > > > On Tue, Apr 5, 2022 at 8:51 PM Chris Murphy <li...@colorremedies.com> wrote: >> >> On Tue, Apr 5, 2022 at 8:54 AM Ben Cotton <bcot...@redhat.com> wrote: >> > Legacy BIOS support is not >> > removed, but new non-UEFI installation is not supported on those >> > platforms. This is a first step toward eventually removing legacy >> > BIOS support entirely. >> >> What is the distinction between "support is not removed" and "removing >> support entirely"? i.e. what are the additional steps for entirely >> removing support? And what's the approximate time frame for it? >> >> "Support is not removed" seems incongruent with "new installations are >> not supported." What continues to be supported? Will grub-pc still be >> built and updated? Will grub2-install still work on BIOS systems? >> >> >syslinux goes away entirely >> >> If the installation media used BIOS GRUB, syslinux could still go >> away. What consideration has occurred to switch from syslinux to BIOS >> GRUB for installation media? Is BIOS GRUB being deprecated? Or is it >> being discontinued in Fedora? >> >> If security vulnerabilities in BIOS GRUB are discovered, and >> grub2-install doesn't apply the most recently available fixes, I >> consider this an unsupported configuration. We can't say "support is >> not removed" while removing the ability to apply security fixes to the >> embedded bootloader. >> >> > * Some machines are BIOS-only. This change does not prevent their use >> > yet, but they are effectively deprecated. grub2 (our default >> > bootloader) is already capable of both BIOS and UEFI booting. >> >> This is inconsistent with the previous language "new non-UEFI >> installation is not supported". Clearly the change prevents their use >> if new clean installations on them aren't possible. >> >> >> > However, this modifies the baseline Fedora requirements and some >> > hardware will no longer be supported for new installations. >> >> This is removal of support. No mere deprecation. >> >> >> > Installs will continue to work on UEFI, and will not work on Legacy >> > BIOS. >> >> Again, removal of support. The change does prevent their use for new >> clean installations. > > > A less phased approach was considered when we were working on the change > proposal and would actually be more desirable from a development point of > view, but a more generous approach seemed more palatable since it'd give > people more time to handle transition.
This generosity doesn't answer any of the questions I've asked, or address the inconsistent language I've noted. What is less phased in than what's being proposed? There are advocates of planned obsolescence of BIOS systems, with a soft landing, I'm one of them. But this is not anything like what I've imagined. It's not a plan, it's a notification. And it's a very hard landing, significant removal of support is actually in this proposal, not merely deprecation. It leaves essentially no time to plan alternatives. -- Chris Murphy _______________________________________________ devel mailing list -- devel@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to devel-le...@lists.fedoraproject.org Fedora Code of Conduct: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/ List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines List Archives: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/devel@lists.fedoraproject.org Do not reply to spam on the list, report it: https://pagure.io/fedora-infrastructure
