> UEFI is defined by a versioned standard that can be tested and certified against. By contrast, every legacy BIOS is unique.
The "standard" for BIOSes was at first the IBM PC ROS's Reference Manual, and later the PS/2 Reference. Naturally, many vendors failed to implement it correctly. But the problem with EFI is the same. Still hoping that someday, EFI netboot support will be something usable.
I once considered using EFI as a basis for booting some of my bare-metal works, but:
- it requires the GPT partitioning scheme, which in turn requires handling of UUIDs. Their endianess is not little, big - its mixed. mixed in the same value. This is a quirk inherited from Microsoft.
- EFI system partition is the FAT file system, which is an FS that is even older than the legacy BIOS. Many gory details. Legacy from Microsoft.
- EFI "executables" are actually windows executables, who still start with the 'MZ' header from MS-DOS. The real mode code for displaying "This program cannot be run in DOS mode" is, depending on the toolchain, sometimes still included. Also legacy from Microsoft.
I don't see why Linux users should be enthusiastic about adopting this.
The "standard" for BIOSes was at first the IBM PC ROS's Reference Manual, and later the PS/2 Reference. Naturally, many vendors failed to implement it correctly. But the problem with EFI is the same. Still hoping that someday, EFI netboot support will be something usable.
I once considered using EFI as a basis for booting some of my bare-metal works, but:
- it requires the GPT partitioning scheme, which in turn requires handling of UUIDs. Their endianess is not little, big - its mixed. mixed in the same value. This is a quirk inherited from Microsoft.
- EFI system partition is the FAT file system, which is an FS that is even older than the legacy BIOS. Many gory details. Legacy from Microsoft.
- EFI "executables" are actually windows executables, who still start with the 'MZ' header from MS-DOS. The real mode code for displaying "This program cannot be run in DOS mode" is, depending on the toolchain, sometimes still included. Also legacy from Microsoft.
I don't see why Linux users should be enthusiastic about adopting this.