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Rationale
We should investigate ways to use LinuxBios/Openbios enabled hardware to provide a better user experience. Possibly even set up a team to meet with them and discuss.
Some ways it may help is:
- Shave time off bootup
- The ability to support ACPI maybe on hardware not supporting it correctly now
- Being able to support buggy hardware better
- New ways of booting the computer we never were able to do before (ie, boot straight into a media centre instantly)
If we push as ubuntu enabled computers, we could also try to get them to employ LinuxBios/Openbios so that more of the computer is open, and we can do a lot more with the hardware, instead of relying on firmware updates (that sometimes can only be applied in windows).
OpenBios also may benefit some motherboard manufacturers because they no longer need to pay money for the more commonly used bios.
We should try to 'become one with the hardware'. This lets us do this. And it doesn't hurt to take 2 or 3 hours out of some developers time to work on something that may make booting more configureless, the computer more stable, more features, and provide a means of booting quicker.
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Messing with the bios seems really scary to me... especially because I am stuck with HP's "Goldfish3" motherboard.
The last thing Ubuntu needs is a whole lot of people getting a partial bios, which would brick em.
If you can guarantee a less than 1% failure rate, then sure, go ahead, but this is something that has to be done perfectly or not at all.
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Auzy
wrote on the 7 Mar 08 at 00:05
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Your right, it is. We don't neccessarily have to fix the old ones, but we should get linuxbios out there on new motherboards for linux computers (beign sold as linux computers). Because it may for instance cut seconds off the boot time
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Yes, LinuxBIOS / OpenBIOS (now called coreboot) is the dream.
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I like this. It's definitely playing with TNT, because one bad overwrite on your BIOS, and your machine's as good as an expensive paperweight.
However it does bring about some potential. Namely, in the case of laptops, this could bring about plenty of stability (read: overparking/overspinning hard disks), and definitely give Linux a performance edge, if the BIOS was stable, fast, and supported the hardware 100%. (I can't forgive lack of support in a BIOS; you absolutely need that when you start the machine up.)
I say we experiment with it, at least; see where it could lead us. I sure would enjoy a Linux-based BIOS, just to see how well it could perform with the hardware we give it.
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Auzy
wrote on the 7 Mar 08 at 04:50
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Not always actually.. Gigabyte Motherboards carry 2 bios chips.. Theres no reason why we couldn't try to get gigabyte to support linux bios instead over 2 chips, then there is no risk
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I'd like to see this but I doubt Ubuntu would be the ones to implement it.
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I agree.
We should also try to get Ubuntu partners such as Dell to partner with coreboot.
The problem is that;
* coreboot does not boot Windows yet.
* coreboot supports few chipsets.
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This could be done with Dell as a major partner since they could benefit from it more than anyone else.
I like the idea of a fast boot too.
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Trinix
wrote on the 12 Oct 08 at 17:58
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• The roll out of this technology is important and should be handled with extreme care. Specific hardware that is listed as fully supported, Ubuntu should then use CoreBoot. If not, then it won't use it. As more hardware becomes fully supported, it will go onto more and more machines. This sort of phase-in plan is really the only way to get CoreBoot out there.
@ Eldmannen
"The problem is that;
* coreboot does not boot Windows yet."
- Should be #1 priority for the project then. Once that is solved, then go forth with the plan stated above.
"* coreboot supports few chipsets."
- Not a problem in that it doesn't need to partially support a large swath of chipsets immediately. What it needs to do is fully support the newest stuff first, while other programmers go back to work on full support of older chipsets. Not everyone will be-able to get the advantages of CoreBoot immediately, but it is safer this way and pushes forward the technology.
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ubby
wrote on the 12 Oct 08 at 18:15
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Wat is the difference between LinuxBIOS / OpenBIOS and EFI because I still think EFI will be the future?
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Auzy
wrote on the 12 Oct 08 at 22:49
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EFI allows you to write programs and such, but with OpenBios, since it uses linux, it means we could use generic linux programs possibly in the future (similar to expressgate), and allow a faster way of booting linux possibly.
Either way, EFI is really only being used by Apple properly. Vista finally supports it, but its addition hasn't really made any difference.
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riddle
wrote on the 12 Nov 08 at 02:00
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Agree. As long as it doesn't try to flash on a chip that doesn't support it, I support that move 100%.
> coreboot does not support Windows yet
Actually, I thought they had implemented BIOS compatibility in ALDO (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coreboot), which should load Windows.
A note on GRUB: NO!! GRUB would seriously slow down boot. If you are going to boot with Coreboot, please do it right and use FILO or preferably just flash it.
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