Could UEFI be faster than BIOS?

olive · 2016-02-23 14:15:00

A Google search shows plently of website/posts that tell that UEFI allows the system to boot faster than BIOS (although such posts generally implicitly refer to Windows). I wonder what is this. Once in memory the kernel does not use the BIOS or UEFI anymore (except for some occasional things like updating the boot manager) so it can't be faster or slower. The time needed to boot the bootloader and to put the kernel in memory is negligible. So what the hell can be faster with UEFI? Or is it? Are they special features that some OS (perhaps Windows?) can use in UEFI?

Scimmia · 2016-02-23 14:17:22

olive wrote:

The time needed to boot the bootloader and to put the kernel in memory is negligible.

Define "negligible".

frostschutz · 2016-02-23 14:48:43

UEFI won't make your machine faster in general.

marvn · 2016-02-23 14:51:05

Well,

what BIOS/UEFI also have to do is initialize HW as you won't be able to enter bios/boot menu without a working keyboard. And there is a feature in some UEFI implementations, called fast boot, which skips this (and probably some other things). In my case, the "firmware" part of boot takes about 8 sec and fast boot cut this down to half. But I'm not using it as I'm dual booting and that's not possible without a working keyboard in the bootloader menu

Last edited by marvn (2016-02-23 14:52:03)

olive · 2016-02-23 15:05:54

@marvn That can make sense. I have also such a fast boot that I have disabled for the reasons you mention. But in my case it does not make a noticeable difference. I can choose to disable fast boot whether I boot in Bios or UEFI mode. 8 seconds to initialize the keyboard and possibly a few other hardware seems very long.

marvn · 2016-02-23 15:15:07

olive wrote:

8 seconds to initialize the keyboard and possibly a few other hardware seems very long.

it is, but I guess most people don't really care

btw. there is a video showing how fast the UEFI can be - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAgGhKpsFTY

elkoraco · 2016-02-23 15:58:52

marvn wrote:

btw. there is a video showing how fast the UEFI can be - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAgGhKpsFTY

that's not UEFI, that's coreboot with a SeaBIOS payload. It's a separate, open-source hardware initialization framework with an open-source implementation of a BIOS. We should all be so lucky to have it as a default on motherboards, this way we have to grapple with buggy OEM implementations.

zerophase · 2016-02-23 16:00:18

Booting in UEFI only mode (if all hardware supports it) also has the advantage of saving settings from last shutdown to the connected hardware.

marvn · 2016-02-23 16:02:06

elkoraco wrote:

marvn wrote:
btw. there is a video showing how fast the UEFI can be - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAgGhKpsFTY
that's not UEFI, that's coreboot with a SeaBIOS payload. It's a separate, open-source hardware initialization framework with an open-source implementation of a BIOS. We should all be so lucky to have it as a default on motherboards, this way we have to grapple with buggy OEM implementations.

I though that coreboot is a UEFI implementation, but it's apparently more complicated...

Last edited by marvn (2016-02-23 16:02:56)

olive · 2016-02-23 16:43:21

marvn wrote:

I though that coreboot is a UEFI implementation, but it's apparently more complicated...

Coreboot is a free (as in speech) replacement for the firmware. It is the first component of the firmware. It then loads a payload that can be seabios (a free replacement of the BIOS) or grub (so that the firmware is grub) or possibly other things. I don't think there are UEFI payload for coreboot. Unfortunately very few motherboard are compatible.

Last edited by olive (2016-02-23 16:43:44)

elkoraco · 2016-02-23 16:45:38

marvn wrote:

I though that coreboot is a UEFI implementation, but it's apparently more complicated...

It's simpler. Coreboot is like the very low end of the BIOS/UEFI chip that initializes the hardware for booting, setting up a filesystem and rudimentary commands on the flash chip itself, adn then handing over the rest to other programs, which it calls "payloads". A payload can be SeaBIOS, a Linux kernel or Grub.

ids1024 · 2016-02-28 22:02:31

olive wrote:

I don't think there are UEFI payload for coreboot.

https://www.coreboot.org/TianoCore

Arch Linux

#1 2016-02-23 14:15:00

Could UEFI be faster than BIOS?

#2 2016-02-23 14:17:22

Re: Could UEFI be faster than BIOS?

#3 2016-02-23 14:48:43

Re: Could UEFI be faster than BIOS?

#4 2016-02-23 14:51:05

Re: Could UEFI be faster than BIOS?

#5 2016-02-23 15:05:54

Re: Could UEFI be faster than BIOS?

#6 2016-02-23 15:15:07

Re: Could UEFI be faster than BIOS?

#7 2016-02-23 15:58:52

Re: Could UEFI be faster than BIOS?

#8 2016-02-23 16:00:18

Re: Could UEFI be faster than BIOS?

#9 2016-02-23 16:02:06

Re: Could UEFI be faster than BIOS?

#10 2016-02-23 16:43:21

Re: Could UEFI be faster than BIOS?

#11 2016-02-23 16:45:38

Re: Could UEFI be faster than BIOS?

#12 2016-02-28 22:02:31

Re: Could UEFI be faster than BIOS?

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