If you're curious about UEFI, or if you want to use GPT but have reservations because of a Windows installation that's not GPT-ready, you might be interested in a new Web page I've put up:

http://www.rodsbooks.com/bios2uefi/index.html

That page describes how to slap a UEFI implementation atop a standard BIOS computer using something called UEFI DUET. The procedure to do all this is highly experimental, so I don't recommend you rush out and convert a working system right away. It could be worth experimenting with if you've got a spare hard disk to use as a guinea pig, though.

To be clear: Ubuntu won't benefit from booting from UEFI, AFAIK. The main advantage to be gained from this sort of setup is to Windows on >2 TiB disks or to a dual-boot configuration if you want to use GPT rather than MBR. (Ubuntu boots fine from GPT disks even on a BIOS-based computer, but Windows requires UEFI to boot from a GPT disk.) Using GPT has a number of advantages:


  • Support for >2 TiB disks.
  • No more pesky extended or logical partitions; GPT supports up to 128 partitions by default, and they're all essentially like MBR's primary partitions.
  • You can move a Windows partition and it'll still boot.
  • GPT includes CRCs and backups of its data structures, making it theoretically more robust against damage than MBR.



To reiterate, these advantages are not great enough for me to recommend that you casually install UEFI DUET; but if you want to familiarize yourself with UEFI or if you have a real need for its features, you might want to give it a try on a test disk, and maybe then implement it on a "real" disk.