Linux x86/x86_64 Will Now Always Reserve The First 1MB Of RAM

[sdack]

Microsoft is the one driving the UEFI and SecureBoot adoption with the vendors. The lack of FOSS commercial UEFI offerings forces board vendors to stick with their same old suppliers. ...

Oh those poor victims, just being so helpless and Microsoft driving them! *lol*

No. Microsoft still is not at fault for everything that happens. Some companies actually do use Coreboot. It is up to the manufacturers to cut their dependencies and to work together. It is because they choose not to that we have a cruft around BIOSes.

If anything are UEFI and SecureBoot an attempt at creating a standardisation, one which got quickly taken up by open source and finds use on non-x86 platforms as well.

[torsionbar28]

Oh those poor victims, just being so helpless and Microsoft driving them! *lol*

This may be a surprise to you, but Microsoft Windows is by far the dominant OS pre-loaded on client PC's. Microsoft Windows hardware requirements and recommendations are what drives the design and implementation details of hardware in the client pc space.

No. Microsoft still is not at fault for everything that happens. Some companies actually do use Coreboot.

Ok, which companies? As I said earlier, a robust BIOS feature set is a big selling point particularly in the peecee gamer world. Coreboot doesn't have this. Have you tried coreboot? There are like 3 settings you can change, lol. It simply isn't a competitive product in this market.

It is up to the manufacturers to cut their dependencies and to work together. It is because they choose not to that we have a cruft around BIOSes.

That's not how manufacturers operate. They have supply chains. They have supplier contracts and agreements. The manufacturer needs a very compelling reason to take on the risk of switching to another BIOS vendor. As crappy as AMI/Award/etc are, they are commercial entities with engineering departments that implement requested features, and support departments that provide technical support to their motherboard customers. Can you name any companies at all - any - that offer these required business services around a FOSS implementation? I'd honestly like to know as I'm not aware of any.

If anything are UEFI and SecureBoot an attempt at creating a standardisation, one which got quickly taken up by open source and finds use on non-x86 platforms as well.

Of course, the non-x86 platforms picked it up first as a matter of fact. Itanium used UEFI years before x86, for example. But again, what commercial entities sell & support FOSS implementations of UEFI for consumer motherboards? Some names please.

[sdack]

Ok, which companies? As I said earlier, a robust BIOS feature set is a big selling point particularly in the peecee gamer world.

You have lost the plot of your own argumentation. Microsoft is not selling BIOS software. But when you need names of companies who use or support coreboot or only on which coreboot runs on then use Google. I am curious though how you will continue your argumentation and bend it all backwards so you can blame Microsoft for it.

[tildearrow]

Another factor is that especially with consumer "peecee gamer" motherboards, having a gagillion BIOS options for overclocking and such is a selling point. The FOSS implementations I've seen have all been pretty basic and stripped down with bare minimum options. You and I might well prefer this, but the market demands flashy animations and RGB LED controls and such.

You can blame kids who get excited over colors. These RGB cases, fans and even memory modules make a computer look like a darn toy that can't even take serious work.

Ask a teenager. He will probably say "booooring" to a computer without RGB.

[torsionbar28]

You have lost the plot of your own argumentation. Microsoft is not selling BIOS software. But when you need names of companies who use or support coreboot or only on which coreboot runs on then use Google. I am curious though how you will continue your argumentation and bend it all backwards so you can blame Microsoft for it.

I haven't lost the point at all - you are asserting that mobo manufacturers should select an alternative option for the BIOS - I'm asking you what other option do they have? Sounds to me like the answer is none.

Whichever BIOS they use first and foremost has to meet the requirements and recommendations of Microsoft Windows OS or they won't use it. Period. Second, none of the FOSS implementations (coreboot) I've seen meet the requirements of the peecee gamer crowd, so that's not an option for these vendors either. So I'm asking you - what is their option? Where do you propose they buy/license the BIOS implementation from? I don't think you have an answer to this, because there is no other viable option for them, not today anyways.

[linner]

I'm with Linus on this one.

[sdack]

I haven't lost the point at all - you are asserting that mobo manufacturers should select an alternative option for the BIOS ...

Yeah, you have. I was not asserting there was such an option. I said they should work together to create it. All you have said is Microsoft was to blame, which is as ridiculous as it is funny. Coreboot is what you then brought in. It does make a good basis for creating a better BIOS and is indeed already being used by a few companies. Most manufacturers however do not care, instead they keep using the same old shit over and over again, and the costs it creates gets passed onto the customers who out of lack of choices have to pay for it. This does still not mean that a free and open BIOS implementation was bad or impossible, or that the blame was not with the manufacturers. It sure is and it is not with Microsoft for once. I could understand it if you were to blame the chip industry for what the board makers do, but Intel supports coreboot. Google uses it for Chromebooks and ASUS has started to use it for some of its server products. It needs more companies picking it up. I still like to see though how you are going to make this again about Microsoft or how you think you have won an argument through a lack of reading comprehension.

[Guest]

Give it a couple of decades, and we'll see a commit to reserve the first 1 Gigabyte of RAM. You won't care because your laptop has 4 TB of RAM. We we chuckle with nostalgia at the days when RAM was discussed in Megabytes.

Us in the future complaining: "Just 4 TB of RAM?! That's just about usable, but with browsers these days using up so much memory, it's not enough for a decent experience. 8 TB of RAM would be better."

With many apps deciding to ship whole web browsers (utter stupidity IMO), this may well become reality.......

[Guest]

You can blame kids who get excited over colors. These RGB cases, fans and even memory modules make a computer look like a darn toy that can't even take serious work.

Ask a teenager. He will probably say "booooring" to a computer without RGB.

Lol, boomer much? I admit I don't like RGB either, but the underlying hardware can still do the work.......

I do wish there was an easy way to turn off the RGB on components - only some like motherboards provide controls to turn off their own (and of course no Linux support).

[microcode]

"corrupted" of course.