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OS/2 - Technical => Hardware => Topic started by: BigWarpGuy on 2010.10.05, 04:56:14

Title: Wave goodbye to BIOS and say hello to UEFI OS/2-eCS?
Post by: BigWarpGuy on 2010.10.05, 04:56:14
Would this affect OS/2-eCS? Can one install eCS onto a board that has the UEFI?
http://www.gizmag.com/uefi-standard-offers-faster-computer-bootup-potential/16556/ (http://www.gizmag.com/uefi-standard-offers-faster-computer-bootup-potential/16556/)
(http://images.gizmag.com/hero/uefiboot.JPG)
http://www.uefi.org/home/ (http://www.uefi.org/home/)
Title: Re: Wave goodbye to BIOS and say hello to UEFI OS/2-eCS?
Post by: rudi on 2010.10.05, 09:17:14
> Would this affect OS/2-eCS?

Yes. It's the end of the road. Game over.

> Can one install eCS onto a board that has the UEFI?

Not likely. But you can give it a try by installing it natively
on a recent MacBook...

Title: Re: Wave goodbye to BIOS and say hello to UEFI OS/2-eCS?
Post by: ivan on 2010.10.05, 12:56:37
I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for it to happen - been about since 2000 and you still have to look for it, except on a mac.

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1740439/uefi (http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1740439/uefi) the Inquirer has a little more about it.
Title: Re: Wave goodbye to BIOS and say hello to UEFI OS/2-eCS?
Post by: oli on 2010.10.05, 13:10:19
Quote from: rudi on 2010.10.05, 09:17:14
> Would this affect OS/2-eCS?

Yes. It's the end of the road. Game over.

> Can one install eCS onto a board that has the UEFI?

Not likely. But you can give it a try by installing it natively
on a recent MacBook...

As many have done....

The macs just like most UEFI systems have BIOS emulators
Title: Re: Wave goodbye to BIOS and say hello to UEFI OS/2-eCS?
Post by: rwklein on 2010.10.05, 15:32:49
Before posting such stuff do some more reading up on this stuff ?
I'm not saying EFI is going to be problem, however most systems, except Mac, as posted already, have legacy support.
Sadly I can't find the link back but developers from I think it was Award had given a presentation of EFI support.
It was from 2004 the presentation. And the goal was to put a compability layer in the EFI system so BIOS support would be around. On the PC most EFI BIOS'es contain a legacy layer for older OS'es. To my best understanding VISTA does a bad job at supporting
EFI. Windows 7 without service pack I think also does not support EFI that.

So I don't see instant alarm bells ringing. EFI has our attention but best from what I can tell its not a danger right now.
What is a bigger challenge (as part of the EFI standard) is disc layout. Discs with GPT support.
That also has our attention.

Roderick Klein
Mensys
Title: Re: Wave goodbye to BIOS and say hello to UEFI OS/2-eCS?
Post by: melf on 2010.10.15, 09:21:42
I emailed a question about backward compability to the UEFI Administration and below is their answer quoted:

"This is really an implementation question.  The UEFI specification does not really address whether or how compatibility with OSes that are not UEFI-aware should be handled.

That said, most implementations of UEFI that we are aware of today include a component known as the Compatibility Support Module (CSM).  This component does exactly what you are asking about: if the system is installed with an OS that only knows how to boot from legacy BIOS, the CSM makes that work seamlessly.

While over time we expect the proportion of systems supporting purely UEFI-based boot to increase, in the short run most if not all systems will have the CSM or something like it as an option.

When Intel first started talking about the Extensible Firmware Interface it was described an evolutionary not revolutionary change – the original specification was deliberately designed to be implementable on top of a conventional BIOS to enable systems to export both EFI and BIOS interfaces for OS booting.  Over time the EFI specification was moved from an Intel spec to an industry one under the aegis of the UEFI Forum and the Forum picked up ownership of the Platform Initialization (PI) Specs – a set of interoperability definitions for creating modular firmware implementations which can include this concept of a CSM.  Thus the evolution has continued from initial implementations of BIOS with EFI extensions to PI based implementations with BIOS compatibility as a modular component.  As the need for backwards compatibility dwindles over time the next evolutionary step is PI based firmware with no legacy BIOS code components – but we're probably not ready for that next step just yet in the broad market.

Regards,

UEFI Administration
3855 SW 153rd Drive
Beaverton, OR 97006
"

So it seems like we in the short term will have a compability on most systems, but not in the little longer run.
Title: Re: Wave goodbye to BIOS and say hello to UEFI OS/2-eCS?
Post by: rudi on 2010.10.15, 14:56:44
Quote from: melf on 2010.10.15, 09:21:42
So it seems like we in the short term will have a compability on most systems, but not in the little longer run.

That's what I meant. With mainstream Windows now supporting it, system vendors will more and more move into that direction. Also with hard disks larger than 2TiB becoming available, the partition table issue Roderick mentioned is probably going to be the bigger problem.  I'm not so sure that it's possible to make OS/2 recognize such a drive. Not to speak about to boot from it.
Title: Re: Wave goodbye to BIOS and say hello to UEFI OS/2-eCS?
Post by: Kreso on 2010.10.15, 15:42:33
And why not. We still have some years in front of us. So if UEFI get large portion of the MB market there will be onli one solution: To make eCS UEFI compatible. And BTW Roderic did not mentioned SIZE of the HD but LAYOUT.
Title: Re: Wave goodbye to BIOS and say hello to UEFI OS/2-eCS?
Post by: rudi on 2010.10.15, 16:15:28
Quote from: Kreso on 2010.10.15, 15:42:33
And why not.

Because we don't have the kernel sources. So we can't make architectural
changes. Only hacks, as seen with ACPI...

Quote from: Kreso on 2010.10.15, 15:42:33
And BTW Roderic did not mentioned SIZE of the HD but LAYOUT.

It's the size that enforces the new layout.

Title: Re: Wave goodbye to BIOS and say hello to UEFI OS/2-eCS?
Post by: mobybrick on 2010.10.17, 00:29:58
Current limits:

* 65,535 cylinder limit for OS/2 kernel on bootable devices (16-bit address in OS2KRNL)
* 2 TB maximum *size* supported by OS/2 ADD architecture for all block IO/DASD

I guess that there is no chance that IBM would give source ASM for OS2KRNL? We don't need code for the entire OS, just the kernel would be a start!

Moby

Quote from: Kreso on 2010.10.15, 15:42:33
And why not. We still have some years in front of us. So if UEFI get large portion of the MB market there will be onli one solution: To make eCS UEFI compatible. And BTW Roderic did not mentioned SIZE of the HD but LAYOUT.
Title: Re: Wave goodbye to BIOS and say hello to UEFI OS/2-eCS?
Post by: rwklein on 2010.10.17, 22:26:06
Quote from: mobybrick on 2010.10.17, 00:29:58
Current limits:

* 65,535 cylinder limit for OS/2 kernel on bootable devices (16-bit address in OS2KRNL)
* 2 TB maximum *size* supported by OS/2 ADD architecture for all block IO/DASD

I guess that there is no chance that IBM would give source ASM for OS2KRNL? We don't need code for the entire OS, just the kernel would be a start!

Moby

Quote from: Kreso on 2010.10.15, 15:42:33
And why not. We still have some years in front of us. So if UEFI get large portion of the MB market there will be onli one solution: To make eCS UEFI compatible. And BTW Roderic did not mentioned SIZE of the HD but LAYOUT.

Known problem the 65535 cylinder problem, documented basicly in eCS 2.0 manual.
I did not mention the hard disc size problem yet. But some discussion is taking place to look how to fix this...
But I never mentioned this because its certainly not going to be an easy go... :-)

Roderick