EFI For Linux 4.10: Exposing Framebuffer Config, Better Thunderbolt On MacBooks

Ingo Molnar has sent in pull requests for the various areas of the Linux kernel he maintains with various feature updates for the just-opened Linux 4.10 merge window. Of the pull requests so far, one of them worth mentioning is the EFI updates.

The new EFI material for Linux 4.10 includes exposing the EFI frame-buffer configuration. By exposing the EFI FB configuration, user-space can in the future provide localized status strings during firmware updates and other customizations.

Also useful is implementing some remaining EFI functionality so that the Linux kernel finally provides full support for Thunderbolt devices on Apple Macbooks. So if you use Thunderbolt devices on MacBooks, Linux 4.10 should iron out the support better.

There are also various fixes and code improvements as well as supporting RNG seeding via the EFI stub on ARM/ARM64. More details via this pull request.