Legacy BIOS Support Remains Important For Some On Fedora, May Shift Responsibility To SIG

[sinepgib]

Funny part of the promise of UEFI was a standardization to fix the unholy mess of broken BIOS implementations had become... only to end up with an unholy mess of non-compliant, broken, UEFI implementations. The problem likely isn't with Fedora. It's probably a firmware boot loader bug. At least, that's what it sounds like to me.

Yes. The thing is nobody seemed to realize that mess wasn't BIOS itself but the fact it's closed source and nobody audits the implementation. As long as something kinda sorta works for the provided OS we'll call it a day.

This is true, but 70% of something is better than 100% of nothing.

I agree, but a vendor could claim it harms them more to ship something that breaks unexpectedly than not shipping the feature. In terms of backlash, it often does.

Or something went wrong with the firmware. EFI booting gives the firmware more agency in the boot process, and so there is more variance in quality of implementation. And OEMs and motherboard vendors are likely to only test with Windows.

My first UEFI machine had an issue like that. Turns out HP is one of the worst vendors WRT UEFI, it hardcodes a route for the Windows bootloader as default, no matter how many times you set any other target it'll go back and you can only boot a different binary by either going through the boot menu or (the ugly but effective way) just name your real bootloader to be on the correct path.

[sinepgib]

If any of y'all have a more pragmatic solution, I'd like to hear it. "Fuck the BIOS" isn't a pragmatic solution. That only helps to increase the surplus stockpiles of e-waste.

While I think CloverBoot definitely is the best approach here, equating Fedora not supporting older computers to increasing the stockpiles of e-waste is a bit unfair, for at least two reasons.
The first one is that it isn't the only distribution out there, so it's perfectly free to focus on whatever they want to without that being a consequence, there's plenty of distros focused in preservation that we can use instead.
The second one is that it isn't their responsibility only to fight against e-waste, when we say it's a community effort we must not forget we are part of that community, and most people seem to think they can be spectators and just because they have an old machine and good intentions they're doing as much of an effort as anyone else.

[horizonbrave]

one small step backwards for Fedora,
one giant leap backwards for mankind.

[horizonbrave]

I wonder what happens with those BIOS that are not supported by the manufacturer through updates. I know often those updated contains lots of security fixes (I just checked on some old Dell/HP hardware of mine through their respective driver/firmware websites). Without receiving new security updates will I be potentially more exposed to attacks? I think some of those "fixes" won't automatically end up in the OS...

[dragon321]

My first UEFI machine had an issue like that. Turns out HP is one of the worst vendors WRT UEFI, it hardcodes a route for the Windows bootloader as default, no matter how many times you set any other target it'll go back and you can only boot a different binary by either going through the boot menu or (the ugly but effective way) just name your real bootloader to be on the correct path.

Yeah, I had HP laptop with UEFI and remember this issue pretty well. What I did as a workaround was renaming Windows loader efi file, copying GRUB efi file into the same place with previous name and setting proper Windows loader in grub.cfg file. Effect was pretty satisfying- hardcoded UEFI would still try to boot Windows loader but since it was replaced then it started GRUB which let me choose between Linux and Windows. Windows was fine with renamed loader and would boot without issues. The only downside of that workaround was the fact that Windows sometimes updated boot files and it would replace GRUB with its own loader so replacing would need to be done again. Farily easy to automate with some shell script.

[arun54321]

If their UEFI support was good, this would be a bit less worrying. I'm sitting here on a laptop that I have to manually select a boot partition and file every time I boot because Fedora didn't install correctly and can't manage to fix things. Maybe make sure the new thing works before you rip out the already working older thing for once?

Probably the error is between your laptop and the chair.

[arun54321]

Yeah, I had HP laptop with UEFI and remember this issue pretty well. What I did as a workaround was renaming Windows loader efi file, copying GRUB efi file into the same place with previous name and setting proper Windows loader in grub.cfg file. Effect was pretty satisfying- hardcoded UEFI would still try to boot Windows loader but since it was replaced then it started GRUB which let me choose between Linux and Windows. Windows was fine with renamed loader and would boot without issues. The only downside of that workaround was the fact that Windows sometimes updated boot files and it would replace GRUB with its own loader so replacing would need to be done again. Farily easy to automate with some shell script.

That's not true. I have an HP laptop and it does not boot windows uefi by default and it is not hardcoded.

[Alexmitter]

Its 2022, the last machine I have without EFI support is a i286 notebook. I wonder how large the user-base of systems older then 15 years really is. A high end system from back in those days is slower then a cheap notebook is today.

[brent]

I really hope we'll see a move to unified kernel images and systemd-boot soon. It's a breath of fresh air. Much simpler overall, you can easily realize a fully measured boot and you can get rid of the /boot partition among other things.

CloverBoot definitely seems like a good solution for legacy systems.

[sinepgib]

I really hope we'll see a move to unified kernel images and systemd-boot soon. It's a breath of fresh air. Much simpler overall, you can easily realize a fully measured boot and you can get rid of the /boot partition among other things.

CloverBoot definitely seems like a good solution for legacy systems.

Yep, I love those little things from UEFI. Not needing GRUB, having proper metrics of boot time, the option of signing my kernels, etc.

Its 2022, the last machine I have without EFI support is a i286 notebook. I wonder how large the user-base of systems older then 15 years really is. A high end system from back in those days is slower then a cheap notebook is today.

Useful hardware is useful hardware.

That's not true. I have an HP laptop and it does not boot windows uefi by default and it is not hardcoded.

Bold to assume just because yours doesn't have that problem none have or had. Maybe it's a matter of revision. Mine was a 2012 Envy m6 (I think 1108dx or something like that).

Yeah, I had HP laptop with UEFI and remember this issue pretty well. What I did as a workaround was renaming Windows loader efi file, copying GRUB efi file into the same place with previous name and setting proper Windows loader in grub.cfg file. Effect was pretty satisfying- hardcoded UEFI would still try to boot Windows loader but since it was replaced then it started GRUB which let me choose between Linux and Windows. Windows was fine with renamed loader and would boot without issues. The only downside of that workaround was the fact that Windows sometimes updated boot files and it would replace GRUB with its own loader so replacing would need to be done again. Farily easy to automate with some shell script.

Yep, I did the same but with EFIstub and creating the new entry for Windows with efibootmgr. It worked well enough, I had no issue pressing F9 to boot Windows as it was a secondary OS for me.