Author Topic: UEFI and GPT not developed by ArcaNoae - by whom else?  (Read 12967 times)

Sigurd Fastenrath

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Re: UEFI and GPT not developed by ArcaNoae - by whom else?
« Reply #15 on: November 10, 2022, 04:15:03 pm »
We are getting closer, at least  ;)

Tom

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Re: UEFI and GPT not developed by ArcaNoae - by whom else?
« Reply #16 on: November 10, 2022, 04:18:21 pm »
On UEFI Systems there is a separat "EFI" Partition on the HDD, where all the OS have their entrys. The OS are booted from this Partition.

That is the ESP or "EFI System Partition" at the beginning of the disk (100 MB in size)

I very informative internetpage: https://www.heise.de/select/ct/2018/22/1540542514723734
(German, please use Online Translator)

More recent article in the same magazine:

https://www.heise.de/select/ct/2022/21/2201413005184630294

Dave Yeo

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Re: UEFI and GPT not developed by ArcaNoae - by whom else?
« Reply #17 on: November 10, 2022, 04:39:56 pm »
Good sum up Sigurd. Only -
Quote
UEFI BIOS needs GPT HDD Layout (only Exception: The UEFI BIOS uses the CSM Mode if present!)
is wrong I think. I'm not really sure but I think UEFI can work with MBR disks without problems. Only Windoze does not support UEFI without booting from a GPT disk. But....

Yes, as well the secure boot key is often (usually?) optional. I think the certs only appeared on the latest beta or latest minus one.
It is still somewhat tricky installing to exist with Windows but possible.
GPT also means not worrying about the CHS partitioning stuff and can split up drives over 2TB into multiple logical drives of 2 TB or less.

Dave Yeo

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Re: UEFI and GPT not developed by ArcaNoae - by whom else?
« Reply #18 on: November 10, 2022, 04:43:49 pm »
Another thing is all UEFI boot managers work to boot OS/2. I've been using rEFIND, http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/. AOS comes with a minimal boot manager.

Roderick Klein

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Re: UEFI and GPT not developed by ArcaNoae - by whom else?
« Reply #19 on: November 12, 2022, 04:12:48 pm »
Good sum up Sigurd. Only -
Quote
UEFI BIOS needs GPT HDD Layout (only Exception: The UEFI BIOS uses the CSM Mode if present!)
is wrong I think. I'm not really sure but I think UEFI can work with MBR disks without problems. Only Windoze does not support UEFI without booting from a GPT disk. But....

MBR disc can work but are not common in a UEFI envrioment. It also comes with all the legacy headaches MBR disc support bring.
From my perspective its easier to setup GPT dual boot then MBR dual boot.

Roderick

Roderick Klein

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Re: UEFI and GPT not developed by ArcaNoae - by whom else?
« Reply #20 on: November 12, 2022, 04:25:29 pm »
Hi Tom,

thank you very much for the explanation, my comment before was a bit misleading, sorry.

I mean I have no clue who is doing the work.

I do know what UEFI, Secure Boot and GPT means.

Thanks again!!!

My problem with doing a presentation on this topic was that I felt I could just NOT start with secure boot. Without explaining what UEFI and GPT do.
Part of this has todo with the fact that you have an ESP and what a UEFI loader is and what it does in the OS. Maybe that I made to complicated.

What we did at OS/2 VOICE was port 2 Linux tools to OS/2 that enable you to sign a UEFI binary with your own certificate. This is what Arca Noae has done. On a system that has key management in the UEFI BIOS menu you can import this cert and the system will then accept that UEFI binaries from Arca Noae.

Another tool that was created was to import the cert under ArcaOS if the UEFI BIOS menu does not provide this feature.

I primarly had this all of this created as I read that different things in Windows 11 MIGHT fail. Such as certain Windows updates. This was not clear at the time what that could be (I lost the link to that article). I myself also use Bitlocker on all my Windows 10 + 11 installations. And if you switch of secure boot Windows sometimes asks for your Bitlocker recovery key. I do not find that convient.

Its still being tested right now. All tools where ported from Linux and there for once finished will be put into a public repo on Github.com.

Roderick