BIOS vs UEFI preparing for new install

English Install/Boot/Login
1

As I am doing my research on preparing for a new installation of 13.2 on
a Windows 8.1 laptop, and setting it up for dual boot, I want to see if
someone can clear up some terminology for me.

Also I am going to make this a separate thread since this is kind of a
separate issue to the installation. My pc is pretty new, released within
the last year. It is an ASUS GL-551JM.

When I first started reading about it a couple of years ago, I was under
the impression that UEFI is “replacing” BIOS. What that meant to me was
that if my pc has UEFI on it, then it didn’t have BIOS, or else it might
have some kind of hybrid in which you can switch with reasonable ease
between either using BIOS or UEFI if you needed to access the firmware
settings.

However, when I hold down F2 on my new laptop, it goes into the “BIOS”.
The reason I say that is because on the “Aptio Setup Utility” it lists
the BIOS vendor as “American Megatrends” and the BIOS version as 204.

The reason this is important is that I want to set up my dual boot
system to use UEFI features and secure boot. However, if somehow I am
stuck using BIOS instead of UEFI, then I am going to have a difficult
time doing that. If we define terms according to the way they are
commonly used, instead of some strict dictionary definition, I am under
the impression that the “BIOS” is often written in the forums to mean
simply the setup utility, because it is what you get when you hit F2 on
powering up your pc (or whatever key applies to your pc). But that is
not actually the “BIOS”, because the setup utility could be run by UEFI
instead. Yet it seems to continue to be called BIOS, and even on the
setup utility screens they list a BIOS version, instead of calling it UEFI.

Does that seem right, or am I missing something here? I just want to
make sure I understand this correctly before I proceed ahead.

–
G.O.
Box #1: 13.1 | KDE 4.12 | AMD Phenom IIX4 | 64 | 16GB
Box #2: 13.1 | KDE 4.12 | AMD Athlon X3 | 64 | 4GB
Laptop: 13.1 | KDE 4.12 | Core i7-2620M | 64 | 8GB

2

On my Toshiba is still says BIOS even though it goes into EFI boot; within the ‘BIOS’ it has an option to select a traditional BIOS boot rather than EFI.

3

BIOS refers to Basic In Out System. It is the code that is flashed to the non-volitle memory of your machine and is run at startup. You are right though, that BIOS is often refered to as non-UEFI capable.

If you look through the BIOS settings, usually in the boot or startup section, and find an entry for secure boot, your BIOS is UEFI capable.

Bart

4

As others have indicated, people are using “BIOS” to refer to the firmware, whether UEFI firmware or Legacy firmware. Old naming habits tend to hang around.

The chances are that you have UEFI firmware, and probably some legacy BIOS compatibility (often called “CSM” for “Compatibility Support Module”). If secure-boot is enabled, then CSM is automatically disabled.

Opensuse should be fine with UEFI. I generally prefer UEFI to legacy BIOS, except in special circumstances. I do not have any personal experience with ASUS, but the reports that I have seen seem to indicate that their UEFI implementation is reasonably good.

5

On 02/10/2015 04:46 PM, nrickert wrote:
>
> As others have indicated, people are using “BIOS” to refer to the
> firmware, whether UEFI firmware or Legacy firmware. Old naming habits
> tend to hang around.
>
> The chances are that you have UEFI firmware, and probably some legacy
> BIOS compatibility (often called “CSM” for “Compatibility Support
> Module”). If secure-boot is enabled, then CSM is automatically
> disabled.
>
> Opensuse should be fine with UEFI. I generally prefer UEFI to legacy
> BIOS, except in special circumstances. I do not have any personal
> experience with ASUS, but the reports that I have seen seem to indicate
> that their UEFI implementation is reasonably good.
>
>
Ok, good. It is as I thought, just the old names hanging around. I
should be able to start my installation tomorrow!

–
G.O.
Box #1: 13.1 | KDE 4.12 | AMD Phenom IIX4 | 64 | 16GB
Box #2: 13.1 | KDE 4.12 | AMD Athlon X3 | 64 | 4GB
Laptop: 13.1 | KDE 4.12 | Core i7-2620M | 64 | 8GB

6

Strictly speaking, UEFI, BIOS, Coreboot, are each kinds of logic board firmware. UEFI is perhaps the most extensible, and can run Compatibility Support Modules that act as a bridge between UEFI and an operating system by presenting a different kind of firmware to the OS. The most common CSM is a BIOS one. There are some servers, Itanium, and also Apple XServes, which had only EFI firmware and no CSM.

However, when I hold down F2 on my new laptop, it goes into the “BIOS”.
The reason I say that is because on the “Aptio Setup Utility” it lists
the BIOS vendor as “American Megatrends” and the BIOS version as 204.

Vendors figured users are stupid and not adaptable to new terminology, so they decided to keep calling it BIOS. But it’s nothing at all like IBM PC BIOS, which was quickly replicated (cloned) and found on practical every PC up until (U)EFI arrived. But considering how massive UEFI is, (tianocore source code is about the same size as the linux kernel source), I’d consider it anything but “basic”. So it’s simply manufacturers reusing a previous term due to laziness. Worse, much much worse, is some vendors of firmware refer to the CSM-BIOS option as a “Disable/Enable UEFI” option which is just insane. You can’t disable UEFI. You can enable a CSM.

The reason this is important is that I want to set up my dual boot
system to use UEFI features and secure boot. However, if somehow I am
stuck using BIOS instead of UEFI, then I am going to have a difficult
time doing that.

Out of the box Windows 8.1 uses UEFI Secure Boot. And out of the box openSUSE will install along side and also use Secure Boot. And openSUSE even carries a patch for GRUB chainloader so that the Windows Boot Manager option in the GRUB menu will properly boot Windows, still with Secure Boot enabled. (Fedora and Ubuntu fail at this right now.)

If we define terms according to the way they are
commonly used, instead of some strict dictionary definition, I am under
the impression that the “BIOS” is often written in the forums to mean
simply the setup utility, because it is what you get when you hit F2 on
powering up your pc (or whatever key applies to your pc).

It’s just bad decision making on the part of vendors. I’m sure they figured both their customers and their support people will just refer to it as BIOS anyway, or they wanted to de-emphasize UEFI to avoid, who knows what. The fallout is that users end up not using the correct terminology and will call it UEFI BIOS or something like that. So you just have to make the adjustment. The cat is out of the bag, there’s almost no going back. What we should have done, is stopped calling it precisely what it is, and just call it firmware. For example “the firmware setup menu” or “the firmware’s built-in boot manager”. That way you aren’t qualifying it as being BIOS or UEFI or Coreboot in each case, unless you specifically mean to distinguish this.

Does that seem right, or am I missing something here? I just want to
make sure I understand this correctly before I proceed ahead.

You’re absolutely right to feel confused. It’s not your fault. It’s the fault of a ridiculous industry. shrug

7

With some firmware, you can disable UEFI. That is to say, you can put it into a mode where only legacy booting is possible.