Intel announced it is removing the Compatibility Support Module from UEFI by 2020...

I don't know what happened then, but this was a fun read:
arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/02/linus-torvalds-i-will-not-change-linux-to-deep-throat-microsoft/

t. Torvalds

If only more software projects had maintainers like Linus...

I assume you mean inexpensive, but that's besides the point. The user I was replying to was talking about getting an SBC "within a few months", when you can buy them for a tenner off aliexpress

Yeah you're right. I'm gonna go download Ubuntu right now and just run that on my laptop, since I stupidly deleted Windows 10 that came with it.

Tbh I don't really need GPU, so long as I can run X well enough to use Firefox on occasion. I don't care at all about the 3D games or HD videos, and mostly browse with Lynx and Links. So memory is important, need at least 1 gig just because of Firefox. More is always better, to allow using ram disks.
Do they even make any ARM board with PCI slots? That would be really kickass!
I'm looking at SBCs with good OpenBSD support, and only thing that stands out right now is CubieBoard and PandaBoard (those have enough ram). The arm64 support isn't finalized yet in OpenBSD, so haven't really looked into Pine64 or whatever else exists.

Actually my current laptop is less than two years old, and I wasn't planning to make the switch until next year. But now with all these new exploits coming out, I'm not gonna wait that long. Also hoping there might be some Christmas deals for ARM boards...

It goes deeper then that, UEFI without the compatibility Support Module makes the x86 no longer IBM compatible. With CSM you can still boot into PC Dos version 1.0 as CSM will emulate IBM compatibility. Without CSM you need a OS that works with UEFI. Thus basically Intel is breaking a quarter century of legacy support just because Intel does not like people using CSM to solve problem with UEFI proper.

2D games also benefit from a GPU. And xscreensaver's flying toasters or IRIX screensaver.

The PDF linked admits it's because of secure boot and software signing. This is what was always intended a decade ago with "Trusted Computing" except at this point nobody cares about fighting the good fight anymore.

I guess those are games like brogue that use special lighting effects or whatever? Well I don't play those either. I've had no GPU support on my past two laptops, in fact. But it's never been a problem, since any old potato can run 8-bit computer/console emulator or equivalent game. And my screensaver is just a shell script that rotates between ascii demos like /usr/games/{rain,worms} or the more colorful asciiquarium and cmatrix.

What the fuck are people doing that they need to buy a brand new 2017 computer to run DOS1.0 software but they can't obtain any kind of older computer to run DOS1.0 software?

Writing operating systems so as to make hymns and poems for the Lord?

Well the IBM compatible standard goes from 1981 and will die when CSM dies. In the IBM standard the BIOS looks for a boot sector in the devices, once it finds a boot sector it executes the commands in the boot sector. After that the BIOS is not needed anymore for anything but calls for the time/date. UEFI is different, it runs its own operating system.

So you are decided to write your own OS. The IBM standard is well documented and simplistic, the UEFI has crap documentation and a bloated buggy mess to point that returning null for the password allowed UEFI to think it should allow a remote user administration powers to the UEFI OS running below the real OS.,

All of that is well and good in of itself. My question now is why does it offend you that a computer from 2017+ is not backwards compatible given the context that there are millions of perfectly usable older computers being thrown away all the time. If it's a matter of compatibility with older target platforms, isn't it easy enough to get a few of those older computers to do that kind of work?

As for me, I only care about free software. The purpose of project like Libreboot is to provide a free software implementation of basic IO system. When I have free software, I have the freedom to modify the software at any time. Issues of "bloat" or BIOS bugs can be fixed whenever I feel like doing it.

Well it is a matter of breaking the standard. For example FreeDos doesn't know what to do when CSM goes away. Implementing UEFI for FreeDos would break their compatibility with Dos applications.

Okay, so this is a matter of proprietary software breaking when the target platform changes. I cannot say that I sympathize with this. This is the nature of all proprietary software: you are forbidden to help yourself whenever you choose to rely on it, you are forbidden to help your friends whenever you choose to rely on it. If you're smart, you would invest your resources into free software because free software gives users the freedom to fix and update the software.

It is a matter of all old code breaking, even open source Dos application doesn't understand UEFI or why they can't directly interact with the hardware. Dos applications expect to be in a unprotected environment where they can peek and poke most any memory address.

This also means if you are learning to program as OS you have to start with a far more complex OS, you can't just start off by feeding the CPU commands at the boot sector.

Who the fuck cares though. The 8086 was a piece of shit even for it's time. Unless you niggers move to Talos II you goyim will lap the next Intel/AMD chip up.

Without CSM all devices need a EFI system partition to boot. Still booting from a boot loader on the boot sector, well after CSM support goes away that system drive won't boot and you'll have to re-partition it.

People who care enough about it will abandon the architecture, then.

Gaymers won't. Intel could literally bend them over a barrel and poz them, and they'd take it as long as they get their digital bread and circuses.

Couldn't this just be solved with Coreboot and an appropriate payload?

Yes, this is true and completely natural for all software. You're forgetting about what is the nature of all software. Software is a collection of instructions designed to achieve a specific outcome. Therefore when the nature of the software problem changes, the software also needs to be updated to reflect the change. Likewise, free software DOS programs need to change when the assumption of the IBM BIOS has changed. This is natural for all software.

This is a potential solution that can work.

But to what ends? FreeDos was created to have a open clone of Dos. It can run on hardware designed with Dos in mind, it can also run on modern hardware via CSM. Either way the bulk of Dos code works for the most part with the exception of some code freaking out with insane clock speed or code relying hardware bugs. The developers of FreeDos don't want make a UEFI version that won't run on original hardware and would break comparability since the entire point of FreeDos is binary compatibility with the old Dos standard.
Now you can say well that is just FreeDos but what does UEFI give to Linux other then security holes?

What's the point of running FreeDOS and such on bare hardware anymore unless it's on a really old PC that you'd otherwise throw away? I might be wrong but can't you just run it in a VM and it'll work the same? I mean DOSBox on my Core2 laptop works great for old games.

What happens in the future? In 2030 you wouldn't be able to use a 10 year old computer from 2020 just to mess around with learning how to program an operating system as it is no longer as simple as feeding the CPU commands in the boot sector. Not without changing out the firmware for something more open and well documented.

Why couldn't you use a VM for that? I mean. yeah, it's shit that Jewtel is removing useful features for no good reason but do we really NEED the legacy BIOS compatibility? My 2008 ShitPad T400 is more than powerful enough to run any OS I want to in a VM with GNU/Linux as host. I'm sure a more powerful desktop won't have an issue running DOSBox.

What does function does UEFI perform? Why do you need the firmware to be an OS in its own right? What was wrong with the old IBM PC method of the BIOS just initializing hardware, looking for a bootable sector then running whatever is in the bootsector? Yes bootsector malware exists but so does UEFI malware which is much hardware to remove. Basically Intel is just making life easier for hackers to break into machines by having a undocumented OS running in the background that has full access to the system resources. In short given the old method wasn't broke why did Intel mess with it?

Nothing at all.

I still want to know why you'd use DOS as an argument for the existence of the traditional BIOS. I agree that UEFI is shit because your pre-OS firmware shouldn't be able to run a web browser in it but I really don't care about it breaking compatibility with 80s and 90s software. I really honestly just don't.

I'm pointing out the IBM compatible standard is a tried, tested and proven method that is well documented. Also there is still a lot of ancient code running in the wild running on old embedded systems, Intel basically is hindering their upgrade path as Intel is now asking businesses to upgrade to a OS with UEFI. Unless Intel also offers embedded x86 system boards that are IBM compatible.

Being forced into a VM is just lame. It's fine if all you want to do is play some old games, but for OS dev, demoscene, etc. it's not satisfactory. It's more like writing for library/framework shit instead of making your own code run on the metal, which really is the whole point of those activities. And those VM always have bugs. Even Qemu and VMWare have bugs, and dosbox has shitloads more.

Jesus Christ why do I keep coming this place with all you cringey larpers?

The best thing we can do is lobby Intel into not killing BIOS compatibility OR just support companies that use older EFI standards after 2020. For fucks sake though don't use the tranny architecture
youtube.com/watch?v=bS9hiSwL1KY
This is why x86-64 is great and why we need to support some kind of platform standards. Because it sure as fuck isn't comimg from ARM or PPC

It's about maintaining backwards compatibility even if for only the sake of maintaining backwards compatibility.

Does RISC-V have any relevance here? People seem to be championing it as the architecture of choice for paranoid people.

vapourware

Nigger, this is a board that worships GNU/Linux-libre which is irrelevant even in the Linux world and prefers SysVinit over SystemD which is becoming increasingly irelevent itself

This place was never exactly the board to go to for subjects that are relevant to anyone besides Linux autists

Backwards compatibility is the smaller issue. More importantly, I don't trust Intel anymore, no matter what they say or do at this point. ARM is just a small stepping stone away from Intel, and not the final destination. POWER is more promising, and there will probably be better stuff eventually. We *need* more varied architectures and competition in this marketplace! This was lost after the 80's and led to the shithole we're living in now, where the effective monopoly forces botnet shit on people who pay lots of money for the priviledge of being slaves.
Anyway I had other, nicer computers before Intel/PC (like Amiga), and now it's time to move to other computers again. There's nothing left in x86 for me, at all. Not that there ever really was to begin with. I used this hardware because it's the only realistic/available choice there was. Linux/BSD helped to make it less painful, but now even that doesn't help enough.

We don't need more varied architecture you retard. We need more companies complying with an ESTABLISHED INDUSTRY STANDARD ARCHITECTURE.

But your post tells me you don't really care and just want to go and waste money on a new machine because you have no real reasons. You don't need a reason, don't get me wrong, but don't pretend like you have a valid reason, it's really cringey and larpy

Can companies other than Intel/AMD even make x86 chips? Pretty sure all the SSE/whatever patents just make it impossible, in which case we would indeed benefit from more varied architectures
Open-source stuff can be easily ported over anyway

I always told you that UEFI is jewish and backdoor, but you never listened and said shit like:
>MUH it's just a BIOS with cool graphics and overclocking! you can even run web browsers there!! so cool!!!

Intel is part of New World Order. They are dropping CSM because they don't want people to run non-backdoored OS.

do you realize those old computers won't be alive forever? at some point their prices will be huge

That's the crucial question. What is the point of UEFI and what it gives?
pre-UEFI PC were totally fine and working. UEFI didn't offer anything to us other than MUH GRAPHICS AND WEB BROWSERS IN BIOS

Yes, the point is, those (((hackers))) are meant to be NSA, CIA, MOSSAD, NWO agents. It's they who requested Intel to produce UEFI. Now it doesn't matter if target is using GNU LINUX because they can hack him from UEFI, which all PCs no matter what OS use.

Because they were forced/bribed by jews, NWO, CIA, etc
We are not consumers anymore, we are the product.
The UEFI was not made for us, to help us with anything, it was made to help (((them))).

we cannot support other companies because Jewtel is a monopoly, there is no choice

and proprietary software could still be run with help of emulators/translators
But do you think normies give a fuck about what Intel is doing? They will buy every locked shit that intel releases. And they will suck intel's cocks. The only solution is a holocaust.

That last cianiggerfaggotkike was like UEFI is secure prevents rootkits etc but explain windows 10 then..

You can compile your Linux/BSD and related software on any computer with a working toolchain, so it doesn't matter. Anyway in the old days we had standards that actually worked, without being over-complicated junk ripe for constant exploitation. RS-232 and parallel ports let you use devices on any computer. Same with SCSI. Even Cardbus stuff could be used on say, an Amiga 1200 (that's how some people did networking).
You're a real shit head too. Your idea of industry standard is whatever Wintel is. You're just a cock-sucking faggot who's too attached to your stupid games and Windows shit ware that even the thought of having other options and competetion in the market makes you shit your pants. Let me remind you that before Wintel there were other standards that were left behind: S-100 bus and CP/M, for one. Nothing lasts forever, but you're the one who wants to hold everyone else back with your emotional attachment to Wintel platform. Well fuck you, we deserve better.

well said.

Amiga was the best. If you dig into Commodore history it really looks like a fucking sabotage. I think I'll make a thread about it cuz there's lots of detail. PC dos aka ms dos is a ripoff of CP/M and IBM jewed Garry Kildal, the creator of CP/M hard...

I've collected enough legacy hardware to keep myself in operation forever, and will only buy new hardware which isn't pozzed. Most of the SBCs and such are pozzed these days anyway. If you go back far enough in time (Apple G3/G4, pre-ME Intel) you can find machines which appear to be completely un-pozzed. They're older but perfectly suitable for most tasks and at this point are still available cheaply.

I think (((they))) murdered him.

For one, UEFI firmware can boot from drives of 2.2 TB or larger, BIOS can only boot from drives of 2.1 TB or less. BIOS runs in 16 bit processor mode and has to operate in 1MB of memory, which makes it hard to initialize multiple hardware devices at once and leads to a slower boot time with modern computer technology.

UEFI is still shit but BIOS isn't infallible either.

That's not true. The 2TB limit is a limitation of the MBR partition table, which the BIOS doesn't even care about. The BIOS only checks if the first sector ends with 0x55aa and then runs whatever code is in the first sector. If and how a partition table is to be interpreted is up to the boot loader and operating system. That's why you can use GPT with legacy BIOS and have partitions larger than 2TB.

Why do we need BIOS or UEFI when superior coreboot exists? It has a full GRUB as payload, or fucking Tetris. Does UEFI have Tetris, huh?
Or even, why do we have some sort of soldered-on ROM on our PCs in the first place? Why can't the hardware like CPU itself initialize SATA and USB drives? Why do smartphones carry their boot loader on the same physical drive as OS and are fine with it?

...

...

coreboot is a meme, it doesn't support almost any hardware and never will

That's complete nonsense. Go buy an old computer or even go install a virtual machine.

I have a pozzed rig and a non pozzed rig.

I wanted to make a really fast non pozzed, stretching the boundaries(was fun)

The non pozzed is a gigabyte GA78 which still has a bios, with a FX-8370e 8 core that does not have PSP overclocked to 4.5Ghz with 2133Mhz ddr3 16GB, RX480 8GB video, hardware raid (Sata 6GB/s) with 4 Samsung 850 SSD's in mirror/stripe mode. (read speed is 2GB/s, write is about 1GB/s), could go for full stripe to have 2Gb/2GB, which is close to a NVME setup.

TBH, the non pozzed is still relevant for anything even at this point. CPU is about as fast as a recent Intel Core i5-7600K quad core.

protip: software is supposed to follow the hardware, not the other way around.

That doesn't explain Intel with 40 years of backwards compatibility. That's a lot of cruft, and this was leveraged by the memory sinkhole exploit. There's probably lots of other bugs lurking in that mess...
In reality, software compatibility is what let Intel and Microsoft dominate the market, by standing on the shoulders of IBM. A long time ago the saying "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM" was a common saying in offices around the world. That's simply been replaced with Wintel platform, and people cling to it like a security blanket, even though it's botnet all the way down.

Oh boy, the "x86 rust" meme again. As if to say firmware-level attacks don't exist on other architectures. Implying it's simply impossible to force an ARM processor to jump to any of its 6 privileged modes.

Get bent you LARPing nigger

yes, let the hatred flow through you

Show the exploits that give negative cpu ring elite access on other archs. I'm waiting.

Besides Trustzone (part of AMD PSP) is found on many ARM processors, just saying.

When was the last time you bought a computer with a 16-bit processor, less than 1 MB RAM, a floppy drive, or a CGA monitor? Why do you want a firmware that pretends the 286 and A20 gate are "advanced" features?

EFI is pretty simple and has GPT support.

Look up what turstzone is before talking about it in the same context as ME or something.

Can't you install your own UEFI-compatible BIOS loader program (such as Seabios) and chain-boot into your non-EFI software?

If Intel wants to lock me down (which they do and admit so in the PDF) then what is even the point of this? Making it 'harder'?

Modern x86-64 chips resemble their 8 and 16 bit predecessors superficially at best

Why would it need support for any kind of partition table? BIOS didn't have that either.

An FPGA board like MiST is very different from a real Amiga 500, but it still behaves identically. The exact circuitry doesn't matter, the behavior does. The fact that there exist ring -2 exploit for amd64 that leverages old behavior is proof that the silicon itself isn't so important, only the behavior.

tomshardware.com/news/blackhat-x86architecture-vulnerability-disclosed,29800.html

Glad you admitted that, son. Whenever you boot with BIOS, you start in 16-bit "real" mode with A20 disabled. Your latest PC can't access more than 1 MB RAM until you enable it with a fake keyboard controller.

win.tue.nl/~aeb/linux/kbd/A20.html

user, this thread is literally about Intel killing BIOS

Its not about support. BIOS has "support for 101" things that nobody uses. OS now basically ignore 99% of the BIOS and leave the influence asap.
With UEFI, a lot of that cruft can be cleaned up and replaced with something far leaner than BIOS (like in Coreboot). Instead of running a bunch of legacy BIOS programs just to "chainboot" and reach your bootloader, UEFI requires a lot fewer steps. UEFI can even BE your bootloader if you wish.

Coreboot is an example of good UEFI. OEMs can make shitty UEFI that does weird, nonstandard shit that breaks compatibility or spies on you or other has bloat in general. Of course, BIOS had this problem too.

Don't forget they stopped doing hardware validation 4 years ago, the users have been the beta testing department for all new Intel chips since then.

You know how every first iteration of a new AMD CPU design turns out to be a broken clusterfuck? The Athlon 64 having no thermal safety. Phenom 1 having a crippling TLB bug. FX chips being slow garbage. 2017w09-w30 Ryzens flat out failing under moderate FMA3 unit load. That's going to be happening to every Intel chip from now on. And unlike AMD they won't get their shit together with a second revision any more - Tick Tock is already dead and buried.
Short your x86 stocks and start buying RISCV and IBM, cause Tel-Aviv is about to have an industry crash in the next few years.

underrated, but not really enough. this is blatantly an attempt to kill off any systems not under the (((thumb))) of the authorities, as is systemd, which Linus also doesn't speak out against much.