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Intell and Microshaft


Pzatch
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Alright. For those that think letting the internet do your bios updates for you is fine because it might make the computer boot faster should first think.

Just how long does it take for your computer to get past the boot strap and onto the OS loading? 10 seconds at most? Are you willing to let some one pass a bios viri to you for an extra 2 or 3 seconds on the boot?

if thats really bothering you then you have more problems than the computers bios.

Who has trouble booting their computer now that they will need an automatic bios update in the next week to access their own ports and hardwar? If it didn't work out of the box from the manufacturer then you got robbed.

 

Personally please leave my untouchable bios alone. I'm fine with a 10 second boot strap.

Who said anything about letting the internet do bios updates for you?

 

The booting speed really has nothing to do with it.

 

There was no mention of automatic bios updates, that is not the point.

 

The point is that now there would be tools for motherboard manufacturers to easily roll their own bios specifically for the hardware on their motherboards. Instead of having to patch modified code around commonly used entry points scattered throughout the bios they can now create a nice clean bios from scratch.

 

Having said that, the only concern I have is undocumented chipset features appearing in new generations of Intel chipsets. However, this is independent of the new bios arrangement since they could do it with the regular bios as well. In that case, they would simply only supply licensed bios manufacturers with the details of the hardware interface.

 

Glitz.

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Whats stopping anyone from writing their own bios now for their own MB?

The plane fact is if Nvidia wants to write their own code for their own stuff no one is stopping them. If they get together with AMD and VIA what outside code would they need. Those three companies could write a new one in a minute. Nothing in the OS would ever need changing. Users wouldn't even notice. They wouldn't have to even care or think about.

They could even make it modular. If VIA wanted an Intell prossessor instead of AMD then out comes any AMD code and in goes the Intell code. The same for any other components on the system.

 

The plane fact of this Intell, M$ consortium is they want to own and controle the bios code. It will never be open source as long as M$ or Intell have a hand in it. And open source is what all the other manufacturers want. That way they could use it to incorporate their new hardware with out having to pay Intell or write all new add on code.

 

This is also the exact vehicle M$ would love to have a hand in just to screw up anything other than their stuff. M$ will be pushing hard to have more of the boot strap/bios code incorporated into the OS then they will have the code copywritten and closed to everyone else. Pay them or don't play is what will eventually happen. Since the machine code can only be written in one specific way to use the hardware the right way then they will effectivly "own" all the possible code to the bios.

 

And since part of the code will be 'updateable' by the OS your using then just wait for the new M$ way of doing things.

 

Intell wants in on all this because they will own all the other bios code.

 

There are already other open source bios codes out now. One from Japan runs most cell phones and sterios out now.

 

Untill the new consortium says the words"Well make it free and open source" then I'll just keep what I trust now.

 

Sorry about the rant but this is one of the few areas in computing that I have always trusted and never thought would need updated. If it needs rewriten then just rewrite it to be leaner and more stable. No need to change how any of it interacts with what we have out now. I just can't see how we need a new bios for the modular type home PC's we have now. I can't see how the basic modular design for them will ever change. If written the way it is now so that it will work with the modular style components we have out now.

 

I just don't trust this group of companies.

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Part of the issue here is that if everyone makes their own bios under different formats, then all hell breaks loose. Standards are extremely important to the IT world. If it had not been for the develpopement of a unified standard for PC's, there would never have been any chance of them becoming as common as TV's as they nearly are now.

 

The benefit to this system, if it ever happens in a big way, is that everyone will be able to use a standardized set of tools and interfaces to make highly optimized bioses, instead of everyoe doing something different.

 

Also, I refer once more to my last post.

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Standards is a double-edged sword. I think what we want is standards that everyone agrees to use. What microduffy and mob wants is a standard that they own.

 

Is a standard that is "owned" a standard?

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Well, I think you are giving the MS boys too much credit. I dont' think they want to own the standard, I they just want to be guaranteed a first place in line to make sure their stuff work with it better than anyone elses stuff when released.

 

Oh well. Time will tell.

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Before I continue, let me say that I don't like MS in general.  I don't like their bussiness practices, I don't like most of their products and I don't like their customer service.  That being said.....

 

It realy gets tired listeing to people demonizing them.  It's like all the anti Wal*Mart crap.  Yes, they do bad things.  Yes, they sell crumby stuff.  Yes, they treat employees poorly.  Yes they cheat their competition every chance they get.

 

But you know what?  SO does every other bussiness in this God forsaken country.  Anyone who believes otherwise is at best, naive.  ANd other counties, i.e. England, France, Germany, Japan are all as bad if not worse.

 

The problem with Companies Like Microsoft and Wal*Mart is a problem of scale.  All software makers release buggy software full of holes and buggs months or years before it's ready and fail to adequitely support it while trying to sqeaze the nuts of their consumers into buying upgrades.  People jsut get pissy about MS becaue they do it on a bigger scale. 

 

Look at auto desk, the makers of Autocad.  THey charge, depending on the package, between $3000.00 and $6000.00  How much do you think developement actualy costs.

 

 

The people who are dreaming up conspiracy theories about this need to chill out.  This is OBVIOUSLY a HUGE leap forward for modern computing.  ANything is better than AT BIOS, and this is a long way from AT.

couldn't agree more.

 

i dunno what it is about the unix crowds but there seems to be an over abundance of people that despise any sort of large business or anything that may remotely be made to look as though it *could possibly somehow* encroach on "rights". it is really funny actually. only in the *nix world have i found somebody that actually considers copyrights "bad law".

 

*nix users seem to have some incredibly warped sense ideology. on one hand they love the socialist nature of the open source community (which in its self is hilarious considering how bad a word liberal is in the USA) and demonize certain big business. little do they realize that what is actually spewing from their mouths/hands/heads is so much hypocritical drivel even a free diver would drown in the mire.

 

woo....and do some people get emotional about it....ooo boy. i say if something is definitely not impeding my life and health then it is a pretty minor matter. there are definitely situations and companies in this world who are actually endangering or taking the lives of people (ie tabacco companies) or the environment. i mean really, why should i worry about Microsoft or legalizing gay marrige when neither impede how i live my life? why should i care what OS somebody uses and whether or not it contains proprietary code?

 

nope it is all very silly. that being said though though Microsoft is no threat to my life and living how they conduct some of their business and the fearmongering and intimidation does bother me. i mean really a company that is that large that rich should not be worried to much about competition. they should also be taking a different approach to priracy rather than intimidating politicians, etc into endorsing/creating laws that can or will be a large problem in the future or actually disregard certain other existing laws (ie paladium technology flies in the the face of monopoly laws).

 

anyway...enough ranting.

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True, the BIOS almost didn't change since the first AT.

I use to work on a High speed real time embedded software on DOS with a DOS Extender.

I wish the BIOS was 32 bit, with LAN support, USB support, accelerated Video support, better mouse support, better DMA support and so on, so I don't have to rewrite the drivers myself.

At the beginning the BIOS was notably made for that: an API between the hardware and the software.

The trouble is that I doubt they are working in this direction. It seems, at the contrary they are going to remove the few thing that were already there, add "nice" features like

Palladium/TCPA and let it just be able to launch Windows.

So yes I'm worried. But well i's just me, who use DOS any more except on embedded system ? I know DOS user base is small enough now to be ignored. But I suspect Linux is going to have some trouble with those changes too. Are we sure the Linux user base is big enough not to be ignored too ? :juggle:

 

roland

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This sounds like a pre-kernel kernel to me - and I have to agree with those of the sentiment that M$ being involved in engineering anything is a BAD idea, because, au contrair to what VeeDub said about m$ being not really any worse than any other company, they have yet to invent something; ANYTHING. We all know everything they've every done was done first elsewhere, then a) made "prettier & easier" to outsell or B) bought out. I believe this is a way for them to get motherboards manufactured that won't boot anything but windows. Obviously we'd overcome, in time, but I hate that a LOT of linux drivers for hardware are simply approximating m$ methods for data transfer, etc. It means we look "behind the times" and incapable of designing original methods for stuff - DESPITE the fact that the 2.6 kernel alone is miles ahead. Usually it's not a matter of linux devel being slower, it's that we can interface with m$ filesystems and hardware, etc (and they can't and don't bother trying to read/writer to say ext3 or ReiserFS, so they get to move forward with their own crud quicker). I'm for the idea of an OPEN BIOS type of new BIOS, because a standard m$ is involved with won't be a standard, it'll be leverage. And it'll mean a wine-like emulation for us at the lowest, most basic level - the mainboard.

Edited by static
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It means we look "behind the times" and incapable of designing original methods for stuff - DESPITE the fact that the 2.6 kernel alone is miles ahead.

We ARE behind the times. I love linux, and I use it on my own PC every day. I'm using it right now in fact. But we AR behind the times.

 

Drivers for new devices, if not supported under and existing driver may take months if not many years to work their way into the linux kernel.

 

Mandrake 9.2 is the first distro i've ever used that would let my USB multi-card reader work correctly without a custom kernel. USB multi card readers have been available since the late 1990's. Let's see, 2003-1998, that's 5 freaking years to make a multi card reader work without compiling a custom kernel.

 

2 years from hardware release to dynamic support for my printer, and some dirver functions still don't work.

 

No native support for encoded DVD's without installing forign packages that are technicaly illegal in this country.

 

Automount is still flaky for MANY people, so flaky in fact that many people choose not to use it.

 

Winmodem support is still marginal at best.

 

Hardware detection, a mainstay of Windows AND Mac, flaky at best, though I hear there are new things on the horizon for detection.

 

Plug and play is nearly non-existent.

 

 

 

If you want to talk about the stability or customizability or cost effectiveness or security or any of the things linux does well, then that's great, but do't dilude yourself into thinking we are not behind the times. If between all the countless linux programers, nobody can figure oput how to handle a new kind of bios, then it's time for linux to die and that's not a joke.

 

Without a doubt, the bios is the BIGGEST dog left from the original AT standard. It has left us with a bizaar half assed almost plug and play OS, where USB and a few other things are plug and pluy, (sort of) and all the stuff that the bios can recognize is handled there with no dynamic detection.

 

It's retarded.

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Hate to shoot fish in a barrel, but (no wait! I love this!) Here goes:

 

Drivers for new devices, if not supported under and existing driver may take months if not many years to work their way into the linux kernel.
Sure - when they have to figure it out by trial-and-error! If the damn manufacturers were a little more forthcoming with some recogition for linux it wouldn't (and doesn't in, say, nvidia's case for example). I STILL DON'T SEE REISERFS SUPPORT IN WINDOWS!!!! Know what I mean? And those schmucks are getting paid! When hardware is vendor supported it doesn't take ANY longer than windows. Besides, we get MORE, so it's unfair to complain (especially considering all linux developers are working pretty much for free except in very few cases). I'm enthralled by those guys.

 

Mandrake 9.2 is the first distro i've ever used that would let my USB multi-card reader work correctly without a custom kernel.  USB multi card readers have been available since the late 1990's.  Let's see, 2003-1998, that's 5 freaking years to make a multi card reader work without compiling a custom kernel.
Maybe so - but you're forgetting that the linux kernel, thanks to this customizable nature, can be very small and therefore save memory and run faster. For example - I don't have one of those, so I'm glad support for it wasn't needlessly compiled in and slowing me down! How long has this hardware WORKED for you with a custom kernel? This sounds like a pro, not a con to me.

 

2 years from hardware release to dynamic support for my printer, and some dirver functions still don't work.
Many printers are not supported in XP either. Paperweights now. Upgrade or suffer for either OS, so shop smart!

 

No native support for encoded DVD's without installing forign packages that are technicaly illegal in this country.
How is that linux being behind the times? That's the country's laws that are outdated. I installed 9.2, typed ONE line (urpmi libdvdcss) and have happily watched encrypted DVDs flawlessly since, with an insane amount of ease thanks to the new "dvd" button in xine. It's not fair to blame lack of native support for something on an old law passed by a moron.

 

Automount is still flaky for MANY people, so flaky in fact that many people choose not to use it.
Well, again, considering if your fstab is pretty, a single "mount /dev/this /mnt/there" (which the TAB key makes lightning speed to type btw) will mount stuff for you anyway, it's really a matter of choice. Some aren't big on it anyway, and most of us linux users don't want a windows clone - we want an alternative. OTOH, supermount works for the 20 or so people I know who use linux, so we all use it without complaint. When it is flaky, often it's a hardware thing. Bet it's never flaky for linux-approved hardware though, if you catch my repetive angst-for-win-only-hardware drift.

 

Winmodem support is still marginal at best.
Yeah - well - they're WINmodems. That has nothing to do with "behind the times" as far as linux is concerned - it's the stupid manufacturers of these attrocities who are obviously behind.

 

Hardware detection, a mainstay of Windows AND Mac, flaky at best, though I hear there are new things on the horizon for detection.
Again, WinHardware maybe, which we can still do anyway most of the time.

 

Plug and play is nearly non-existent.
That depends on whether or not it's linux developers trying to get it right or vendor supported. Vendor supported stuff works as soon as the stuff is made same as windows stuff.

 

If you want to talk about the stability or customizability or cost effectiveness or security or any of the things linux does well, then that's great, but do't dilude yourself into thinking we are not behind the times.  If between all the countless linux programers, nobody can figure oput how to handle a new kind of bios, then it's time for linux to die and that's not a joke.
As per above I disagree. We shouldn't have to figure it out with trial-and-error like NTFS write-support (which we got! yeah baby!) The specs should be open to developers so people are free to make whatever kind of PC they need available to themselves and anyone else who wants it (either free or for a price - but still - a standard is a standard is a standard)

 

It's retarded.
Amen to that! Hope I didn't sound too retort-with-a-snort, but I believe linux is at par with windows in EVERY aspect if you shop smart. Granted it looks slow to a average joe common consumer, but we all know the advantages in terms of stability, security, scalability, and - dare I say it - ease of use (if you know what you're doing).

 

Windows specific anything seems a few semi-colons short of a compile if you ask me.

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I actualy spent a good deal of time replying to each of your comments (accept automount, becaue that one is open to opinion), but in the end, I erased it because I realized my resonse to each was the same, so let me sum up.

 

 

 

Horse pucky!

 

 

 

All of your responses boil down to the same thing. "It's not slow/bad/outdated because it's someone elses fault." That is basicaly what all of your points boil down to, and my response to that is this, "That's faulty logic and useless finger pointing"

 

 

It doesnt' matter why I had to buy an antiquated style of modem to connect to the internet with linux. It only matters that I did.

 

It doesn't matter why there is no legal way to watch DVD's in most western countries, it only matters that there isn't.

 

 

You see what I'm getting at? No person who matters is ever going to cnsider linux to be a serious OS if they have to buy special hardware to make it work, and even then may have to spend time and moeny to make it work.

 

They will look and see four things.

 

1. Linux is free :D

2. Once set up, linux is going to run better and more reliably. :D

3. They may have to throw out expensive new hardware becaus it isn't supported yet, and may take years to get supported :o

4. THey will have to triple their IT staff for a couple years untill they get the wrinkles ironed out of the system, just in time for an upgrade when they will need more IT people. :devil:

 

THat's the point when they go buy Winodows. THey (and I) don't care if it's the hardware engineer's fault or the driver programers fault or the hardware companie's fault or the linux kernel programers fault or the communities fault for not demanding support.

 

THat's what people don't understand. I'll keep using linux because it works better for me, but I'm smart enough to realize I'm in a minority and while linux outshines all the competition in the areas that matter to me, it doesn't hold a candle to windows in many of the areas that matter most to most people, corporate and private, if it did, we'd never be having this debate because everyone would use it.

Edited by VeeDubb
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Well - your "special hardware to make it work" point is moot - like I said: Shop smart. I don't own special hardware and it ALL works. I just made sure to not buy windows specific hardware. I already said average joe common consumer will obviously think linux is playing catch up - but the truth is it's only catching up to hardware that isn't either natively supported or using *real* standard protocols. The rest works as soon as either it hits the market and/or the distro hits the market. Joe Consumer can't buy a winmodem, THEN complain that linux is slow to get it to work. Mac hardware is intended for Mac OS ONLY - the fact the the linux community managed to get linux to work on that platform is a bonus - not a sore a point because it took years longer to come out than Mac OS did. Mac hardware/software is developed simultaneously to work together with no forethought of linux or windows. Why would it be different for windows only hardware?

 

My US-Robotics modem isn't antiquated. Works great. Did from Day One.

 

Basically my points don't boil down to bullshit if you buy real parts. That was my point. Hard facts.

 

Oh - and there are more illegal copies of windows being used than the number of linux users illegally watching encrypted dvd's, so of course it matters why it isn't legal. It's legal here!

 

I didn't want to get into a shootout with you - we both use linux. My point was that if the hypothetical IT staff in your anecdote were to read online hardware compatibilty lists or articles for half an hour before placing their order, linux is all gravy. And furthuremore, to bring my point back 'round to include the proper topic at hand, new bioses would be great if the linux community wasn't forced to play catch-up and instead had access to the inner workings of it. Which M$ is well known to NOT do. Period.

Edited by static
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Sorry about the bull shit remark, toned down now. I'm a litle testy from cabin feaer. Don't know if you have access to northwest news, but we're in the middle of a major winter storm, so I've got a bit of cabin fever.

 

 

That being said, this is interesting and I'd like to continue it.

 

Let's talk first about the "special hardware" First thing, your argument is based on a false assumption.

 

You are assuming that nobody that might install linux, already owns a computer, and that they can simply "shop smart" as you keep repeating. Problem is, that is almost NEVER the case.

 

Most everyone already owns a computer. Even large companies already own computers. I realize you already know this, but you seem to be neglecting that fact. If we want our beloved dinosaur to come into the 21st century, bussinesses need to adopt it more broadly because that will solve the driver problems wich will in turn get into more and more homes making linux life better for all of us.

 

That said, virtualy every computer sold in the entire world (excluding Mac's) comes with one of two kinds of modems

 

1. A winmodem

2. No modem.

 

That means that if you own a computer with a modem that you use, continuing to use it under linux means throwing away your modem and buying a new one, usualy external which is both expensive and ugly, not to mention an outdated form factor. This point alone caused me to not use linux regularly for several years.

 

If your company bought $25,000 worth of wireless print stations and now it's time for a system upgrade, but the printstations you bought aren't supported under linux, your only option is to stick with windows or throw $25,000 in the dumpster.

 

On the subject of DVD's, your logic is falascious. Windows and Mac both have programs which can play DVD's without breaking the law. Linux does not. That makes linux behind the times as DVD's are extremely popular, and more computers ship with DVD drives than don't. The fact that many people use illegal copies of Windows is completely and totaly irrelevent. It's like saying it's okay to steal a video game because you know that lot's of people steal lots cars. THat's a bit fuzzy if you ask me.

 

There's no reason that something that serves the same purpose as libDVDcss could not be made in a legal fashion, except that libdvdcss is already out there and "apearantly" most linux programers don't care enough about legality to fix it.

And why does the fact that it's legal in your country not make it rediculous that it's illegal for half the peopl in the world that use it? I shouldn't have to break the law in my country because your country has sloppy copyright laws.

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Okay, now that we've all gone off on tangents that are not related to the bios at all, maybe it's time to look at what the bios is and why it is important.

 

The bios is code that is available to be run as soon as power is applied to the computer, nothing more, nothing less.

 

It's most important function is to load the MBR of the hard disk and then pass execution to that piece of code. Thereafter, the bios is really no longer of use and may be ignored.

 

So, as long as it loads and runs the code in the MBR then you can always boot Linux.

 

There are many other functions in the bios to make a programmer's life easier but these are just bonus functions. They are not (and have never been) required to run the system.

 

The only possible exception to this rule is ACPI which again, needs to be there when power is applied to the system. However, this again is a nice to have but not required feature. You could in theory just boot up the MBR again and have that handle restoration of the system. It just requires a little creativity.

 

Now for the caveat: As for booting any operating system that does not use the bios for access to the hardware, the only way it will be able to access the hardware is if the specs for the hardware are known so that a driver can be written. This may or may not exist but is not a bios issue. It is simply the policy of the hardware vendors, whether they wish to write such drivers and/or devulge the specs. Even an Intel/MS bios may not help, if the hardware specs are not known to them. Remember, although it is true that Intel makes chipsets and microprocessors, they are by no means the only ones. There are motherboards out there that contain absolutely no Intel parts on them (and are x86 compatible).

 

So really, when you get right down to it, the bios really doesn't have to do a whole hell of a lot.

 

Glitz.

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