errandwolfe Posted August 23, 2006 Share Posted August 23, 2006 Apple has leapt a generation ahead of other PC makers in adopting Intel's modern EFI in its new new Intel Macs. An earlier article, Imaging MacBooks: Understanding MBR, APM, & GPT, introduced the idea of what's different between the BIOS in today's PCs and the new EFI in tomorrow's. Here's a more in depth look at what these differences mean, particularly for users of interested in using Apple hardware to run both Mac OS X and Windows. http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/Home/7CC2...CC39FBD2A4F.html Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/25602-great-explination-of-efi/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
gwprod12 Posted August 23, 2006 Share Posted August 23, 2006 Okay, I'm going to ask the question. What performance benefits does EFI give? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/25602-great-explination-of-efi/#findComment-173155 Share on other sites More sharing options...
bofors Posted August 23, 2006 Share Posted August 23, 2006 What performance benefits does EFI give? None that I am aware of, unless one counts the benefit of just have better firmware in general, EFI has nothing to do with performance really. Apple has leapt a generation ahead of other PC makers in adopting Intel's modern EFI in its new new Intel Macs. An earlier article, Imaging MacBooks: Understanding MBR, APM, & GPT, introduced the idea of what's different between the BIOS in today's PCs and the new EFI in tomorrow's. Here's a more in depth look at what these differences mean, particularly for users of interested in using Apple hardware to run both Mac OS X and Windows. http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/Home/7CC2...CC39FBD2A4F.html Looks great, I going to add it and some of the related links to the MacEFIx86 learning and documentation thread: http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=17917 Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/25602-great-explination-of-efi/#findComment-173168 Share on other sites More sharing options...
gwprod12 Posted August 23, 2006 Share Posted August 23, 2006 I understand that EFI is prettier to look at, since it doesnt have all the clunky POST {censored}. And I understand that device manufacturers will have an easier time making their drivers. But what does EFI do for the user? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/25602-great-explination-of-efi/#findComment-173175 Share on other sites More sharing options...
bofors Posted August 23, 2006 Share Posted August 23, 2006 But what does EFI do for the user? Here is a list EFI benefits by Intel: - Modularity extending from the first code executed at power-on up through the EFI Driver Model - Robust architectural interfaces, implemented in C - Flexible packaging of firmware images - Protected-mode memory and address space management tailored to the unique needs of preboot environments - Automatic ordering of driver execution based on their self-described dependencies - Optional services available as EFI drivers and preboot applications to enable efficient manufacturing test automation and platform management http://www.intel.com/technology/framework/overview2.htm Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/25602-great-explination-of-efi/#findComment-173180 Share on other sites More sharing options...
gwprod12 Posted August 23, 2006 Share Posted August 23, 2006 So, you're saying there's no advantage to the end user? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/25602-great-explination-of-efi/#findComment-173182 Share on other sites More sharing options...
bofors Posted August 23, 2006 Share Posted August 23, 2006 So, you're saying there's no advantage to the end user? No, that is not what I am saying. What is your problem with EFI? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/25602-great-explination-of-efi/#findComment-173197 Share on other sites More sharing options...
gwprod12 Posted August 23, 2006 Share Posted August 23, 2006 I dont have a problem with EFI. I asked what it's advantages/benefits to the user are. Does it have any? I should rephrase, I guess. You listed a bunch of benefits. But they are all for the manufacturer. Are there advantages of EFI that benefit the end user? If so, what are they? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/25602-great-explination-of-efi/#findComment-173201 Share on other sites More sharing options...
DiaboliK Posted August 23, 2006 Share Posted August 23, 2006 faster boot times and no wait time for thing to warm up or connect (i.e. windows when it starts). also if bofors gets efi working for our hackintoshes, that mean we can use target disk mode and have sata raid sets working for our osx86 machines. without apple's efi we are kinda stuck without those features. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/25602-great-explination-of-efi/#findComment-173205 Share on other sites More sharing options...
bofors Posted August 23, 2006 Share Posted August 23, 2006 You listed a bunch of benefits. But they are all for the manufacturer. No, they are not. Platform management means that an administrator can remotely do things like update the EFI firmware and drivers of a network of computers. Implementing EFI in a modular C form opens possibilities for new products like third party firmware modules. Apple's Boot Camp EFI system is a good demonstration of the flexibility that EFI has to manage operating systems. For people interested in multi-booting, I see clear end user benefits. EFI also provides an extensible runtime environment for operating systems to interact with. Because EFI is relatively new and yet to be fully adopted by the PC industry, all of the direct end user benefits are not entirely known yet, as they have not been developed or perhaps even conceived. EFI merely provides a better platform to deliver the end user a better computing experience. However, it is well known that BIOS has some serious limitations, as noted by Amit Singh: - x86 computers always come up in the IA-32 "real mode" -- an emulation of the ancient 8086/8088 Intel processors. The BIOS executes in this mode, which is severely limited (particularly for an ambitious BIOS, say, one that wants to provide a powerful pre-boot environment). Effective memory addresses in real mode are calculated by multiplying the segment (a 16-bit number) by 16, and adding the offset (another 16-bit number) to it. Thus, a segment is 16-bits wide -- restricted to 65,536 bytes (64 KB), and a memory address is 20-bits wide -- restricted to 1,048,576 bytes (1 MB). In particular, the IP (instruction) register is also 16-bits wide -- placing a 64 KB size limit on the code segment. Memory is a very limited resource in real mode. - A BIOS usually has hardcoded knowledge of supported boot devices. Support for booting off "newer" devices gets added to most BIOSs very slowly, if at all. - An "option ROM" is firmware usually residing on a plug-in card (but may also live on the system board). It is executed by the BIOS during platform initialization. The legacy option ROM space is limited to 128 KB: shared by all option ROMs. An option ROM typically compacts itself by getting rid of some initialization code (leaving behind a smaller runtime code). Nevertheless, this is a severe limitation. - Legacy BIOS depends on VGA, which is a legacy standard, and is unnecessarily complicated to program for. - The PC partitioning scheme is tied to the BIOS, and is rather inadequate, particularly when it comes to multibooting, or having a large number of partitions. PC partitions may be primary, extended, or logical, with at most 4 primary partitions allowed on a disk. The first (512-byte) sector of a PC disk, the Master Boot Record (MBR), has its 512 bytes divided as follows: 446 bytes for bootstrap code, 64 bytes for four partition table entries of 16 bytes each, and 2 bytes for a signature. Thus, the size of a PC partition table is rather limited, hence the limit on the number of primary partitions. However, one of the primary partitions may be an extended partition, and an arbitrary number of logical partitions could be defined within it. Note that Apple's partitioning scheme is much better in this regard. - Even with standards like PXE and related security enhancements such as Boot Integrity Services (BIS), it is rather difficult, and often impossible, to deploy and manage computers in a "zero-touch" fashion, particularly when it comes to remote management at the system firmware level, or of the system firmware itself. http://www.kernelthread.com/publications/firmware/ Otherwise, I do not think it matters here whether or not EFI has any benefits to the end user. Our concern is mimicking Apple, we are simply following their lead. If Apple had chosen to stick with OpenFirmware or go with BIOS, I would not care about EFI at the moment. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/25602-great-explination-of-efi/#findComment-173224 Share on other sites More sharing options...
gwprod12 Posted August 24, 2006 Share Posted August 24, 2006 Okay. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/25602-great-explination-of-efi/#findComment-173227 Share on other sites More sharing options...
errandwolfe Posted August 24, 2006 Author Share Posted August 24, 2006 One benefit of the EFI implementation on the Mac systems is the ability to have a "universal" hard drive. While 10.4 does not implement this yet, it is expected in 10.5. This means you could take a hard drive from say a G5 and install it in an Intel Mac (or vice-versa) and be able to boot and run. I would suggest you take a look at the article at the beginning of this thread as it could explain buck better then I this early in the morn. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/25602-great-explination-of-efi/#findComment-173442 Share on other sites More sharing options...
bofors Posted August 24, 2006 Share Posted August 24, 2006 if bofors gets efi working for our hackintoshes... Just to clarify, there are now more than a few people working on EFI here. In terms of the real technical work needed to get EFI running for OSx86 goes, so far I have contributed the least. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/25602-great-explination-of-efi/#findComment-173731 Share on other sites More sharing options...
errandwolfe Posted August 24, 2006 Author Share Posted August 24, 2006 Just to clarify, there are now more than a few people working on EFI here. In terms of the real technical work needed to get EFI running for OSx86 goes, so far I have contributed the least. Yeah but your avatar is just so much cooler then Roga's :-P Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/25602-great-explination-of-efi/#findComment-173736 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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