2013/2/4 Basil Chupin
Saturday, February 02, 2013: The Linux Foundation has sponsored a major revamp of the mini bootloader to help users to launch any version of Linux on computers that come with UEFI Secure Boot. Whenever UEFI Secure Boot is talked along with Linux, the first thought that comes to our mind is Windows 8. Though UEFI Secure Boot is not something new or synonymous with Windows 8 but Microsoft made Secure Boot popular particularly when it was initially discovered that Windows 8 devices won't allow Linux to boot.
The restructuring of the bootloader boots in a different manner, allowing it to work well together with Gummiboot. Unlike GRUB, the Gummiboot accesses the EFI mechanisms before starting Linux. So, the Gummiboot keeps the structure simple as compared to GRUB. However, when the user has activated the Secure Boot, the procedure changes and other firmware-related mechanisms comes to play to verify the kernel before launching it.
Gummiboot is just an example from James, if I understand from his blog posting correctly. It could also be grub2 (efi chainloader) / rEFIt / efilinux which all counts on BootServices->LoadImage() to load and BootServices->StartImage() to execute image and they'll all be benefited from using Linux Fundation's PreBootloader. If what you are asking for is simplicity like gummiboot, grub2 can do it gracefully, as simple as one-liner. chainloader <path-to-your-efi-image-file> <options-to-your-efi-image-file> The rest is for auto-discovering all operation system's efi images in your efi system partition, it's not the business of grub2, anyone can craft a script for that, or you can reuse os-prober if they could support that for you. Remember grub is "grand unified bootloader", not dedicated it's usage to be specific arch, firmware, filesystem or abstraction (raid,lvm,encryption,multipath..). That's why they have utilities (grub2-mkconfig,grub2-install and grub2-probe ..) to help you configuring all systems in the wild as it did support that much. Unfortunately people not appreciate that and only by looking at the produced grub.cfg and say it's too complex and over-enginnered. Inherently grub2 config is simple and easy to craft if you know what you're doing. (And most important the knowledge can be carried to other architectures and don't bother to learn a new one or yet anther new one ..) Regards, Michael
http://www.efytimes.com/e1/fullnews.asp?edid=99636
BC
-- Using openSUSE 12.2 x86_64 KDE 4.10.0 & kernel 3.7.5-1 on a system with- AMD FX 8-core 3.6/4.2GHz processor 16GB PC14900/1866MHz Quad Channel Corsair "Vengeance" RAM Gigabyte AMD3+ m/board; Gigabyte nVidia GTX550Ti 1GB DDR5 GPU
-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org
-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org