[ltp] Re: Can you trust your firmware?

[linux-thinkpad@linux-thinkpad.org]

Thank you for the education. Excellent to know.

Chris


On Mon, 18 Feb 2008, Andrew Barr wrote:

> chris@idlelion.net wrote:
>> I would think ThinkPads starting with the T61 would be a bit of an easier
>> target since they use the new EFI(?) instead of BIOS, so I know they can
>> use MacOS more easily.
>
> Uh, no.
>
> EFI is just an interface, it says nothing about hardware internals, about
> anything that would be required to create an open BIOS. In the sense that
> an open firmware solution is concerned, the legacy PC BIOS interface is no
> more open or documented than EFI is. EFI is the face the firmware puts of
> for the world (e.g. the OS), it doesn't give us any useful information
> about things like hardware initialization that are done before the OS even
> starts.
>
> And do you have any links to show that Thinkpads are using EFI now? I did a
> quick Google search and all I could pull up were videos and blog posts
> about Thinkpads running OS X, which doesn't conclusively prove EFI support
> because OS X now supports PC BIOS booting. I have never heard that the T61
> uses EFI anywhere before. Seeing as it was dropped as a requirement for
> Vista, I doubt we're going to see EFI much outside of the Mac world for a
> long time.
>
>