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brawnypandora0
March 3rd, 2011, 08:07 AM
BIOS isn't that user-friendly for beginners, and it doesn't have a tutorial or help menu. In the future, will everything be GUI based? I hope there'll be a day when I won't have to restart my computer just to change some hardware setting.

EnGorDiaz
March 3rd, 2011, 08:24 AM
uefi looks os promising i bloody hope bios dies in a fire

NightwishFan
March 3rd, 2011, 08:37 AM
i bloody hope bios dies in a fire

That is both terrible and slightly amusing. :) **in a good way**

mips
March 3rd, 2011, 10:44 AM
For the foreseeable future you will always require some form of bios. UEFI however is graphical and mouse driven, many newer ASUS motherboards support UEFI.

Khakilang
March 3rd, 2011, 11:33 AM
BIOS will not die but the user interface may improve somehow. But I hope my wish come true.

Lucradia
March 3rd, 2011, 11:55 AM
uefi looks os promising i bloody hope bios dies in a fire

UEFI boosts too fast for a normal keystroke to boot into the UEFI's set-up. It would require you to hold down a key instead of rapid firing (causing a normal PC's BIOS to warn the user of a stuck key.)

Paqman
March 3rd, 2011, 12:26 PM
BIOS is already well overdue for death. It's obsolete and has to be heavily kludged to be useful for modern systems. At some point the pain of continually trying to bend BIOS to suit current demands will become greater than the pain of switching to EFI and the OEMs will finally make the leap. Who knows when that will be though?

handy
March 3rd, 2011, 12:46 PM
Mac's have been using EFI for some years now. The only contact I have with EFI is via rEFIt which I had to install to be able to boot Linux on my iMac.

Spice Weasel
March 3rd, 2011, 02:39 PM
i bloody hope bios dies in a fire

I heartily agree with you sir.

slackthumbz
March 3rd, 2011, 02:59 PM
BIOS is definitely well past its use-by date. I don't see the point in GUIfying a basic setup utility though. Seems to be just another pointless layer of visual abstraction. Current BIOS setup screens are fine and pretty self-explanatory, it's just the underlying system itself that's horrible and needs replacing.

Tibuda
March 3rd, 2011, 11:35 PM
I heard once on this forum that you don't need a BIOS if you have Linux, because of how GRUB and the kernel replaces the BIOS.

:popcorn:

jerenept
March 3rd, 2011, 11:42 PM
I heard once on this forum that you don't need a BIOS if you have Linux, because of how GRUB and the kernel replaces the BIOS.

:popcorn:

well, there is CoreBoot, which can load the Linux Kernel directly.....

NMFTM
March 4th, 2011, 12:22 AM
In the future, will everything be GUI based?
A friend of mine has a laptop from the early to mid 90's with a GUI based BIOS that let you use the mouse and everything. I think it was a Thinkpad.

Current BIOS setup screens are fine and pretty self-explanatory,
Yeah, if you can't figure out the BIOS you probably shouldn't be messing with anything in it.

jerenept
March 4th, 2011, 01:53 AM
A friend of mine has a laptop from the early to mid 90's with a GUI based BIOS that let you use the mouse and everything. I think it was a Thinkpad.
The HP 425 (http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF06a/321957-321957-64295-3740644-3955548-4173268.html) laptop does this.

Giant Speck
March 4th, 2011, 05:59 AM
I heard once on this forum that you don't need a BIOS if you have Linux, because of how GRUB and the kernel replaces the BIOS.

:popcorn:
You best be Sharon where you got that info.

pi3.1415926535...
March 4th, 2011, 06:14 AM
In defense of the BIOS, it is relatively neutral. Imagine OEMs producing computers with no BIOS, that all it can do is boot directly into Windows, and nothing short of physically changing the hardware could allow you to boot any other OS. I also for some strange reason find the BIOS to be comforting, knowing that there is a whole additional layer of complexity in you computer to learn about.

Lucradia
March 4th, 2011, 07:52 AM
and nothing short of physically changing the hardware could allow you to boot any other OS.

The chromeOS laptops are supposed to be able to do this, not allow you to change the boot order, etc. I'm sure we'll see real computers that use an eFuse-like system to disallow Linux to run (or even MacOS to prevent Hackintoshes.)

Jimmey
March 4th, 2011, 10:29 AM
New PCs could start in just seconds, thanks to an update to one of the oldest parts of desktop computers.

The upgrade will spell the end for the 25-year-old PC start-up software known as Bios that initialises a machine so its operating system can get going.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11430069

juancarlospaco
March 4th, 2011, 02:51 PM
There are a graphical BIOS, it even uses Mouse, Sound, and Voice.

I remember the Soyo motherboards if you turn on the pc but dont connect a keyboard you ear:
" keyboard not connected "
i think that kind of thing die along Soyo...

MisterGaribaldi
March 4th, 2011, 04:43 PM
There's a couple different issues here.

First off, there are long-standing issues with BIOS of a purely technical nature, but from what I've seen it really hasn't been a problem for chipset makers to get around them, so...

Secondly, BIOS pages are only as good or as bad as the chipset maker decides to make them. They're not made with any consideration for the non-hardcore geeks, but if they were, they could be written to be extremely intuitive and well-documented.

Perhaps what we need is something like DD-WRT for BIOS, because then we could have some really nicely-designed BIOSs.

koenn
March 4th, 2011, 05:08 PM
BIOS isn't that user-friendly for beginners,
I find the internal combustion engine not all that user-friendly either (and I literally have the scars to prove it) but that doesn't prevent people from driving their cars.

So i'm with the "if you can't figure out the BIOS you probably shouldn't be messing with it" guys.

TechWiz2100
March 4th, 2011, 05:25 PM
"if you can't figure out the BIOS you probably shouldn't be messing with it"

If you can't figure out Linux you probably shouldn't be messing with it...

You can say that about a lot of things but how are people going to learn if they don't go off on a limb and experiment? BIOS is fine for now however UEFI does not need to focus on boot time or thing of the like, they need to make it script-able so that we could extend the usefulness of it like low level remote management or remote OS install, hell even headless install.

BIOS is limited right now because its not script-able per se and there is a lot of reverse engineering involved to make a custom BIOS, however there are some motherboards that allow custom BIOS in their separate memory bank.

MisterGaribaldi
March 4th, 2011, 05:32 PM
they need to make it script-able so that we could extend the usefulness of it like low level remote management or remote OS install, hell even headless install.

People already have fully automated headless installs for BIOS-based rack-mount servers. Friend of mine has that set up where he works. They buy a new server box, blank HDD, it fails over to net booting, the network sees it and then goes in and, knowing what role it is for (mail server, web server, something else) images it appropriately (based on MAC address) and in like 20 minutes they've expanded their server count by however many new units were installed.

BIOS, per se, was only involved in this insofar as net booting was concerned, and that's it.

koenn
March 4th, 2011, 05:42 PM
If you can't figure out Linux you probably shouldn't be messing with it...

You can say that about a lot of things but how are people going to learn if they don't go off on a limb and experiment? BIOS is fine for now however UEFI does not need to focus on boot time or thing of the like, they need to make it script-able so that we could extend the usefulness of it like low level remote management or remote OS install, hell even headless install.

I suggest you reread and reevaluate my "shouldn't be messing with it" in relation to the car and engine analogy, the way it was intended and posted.


I've got nothing against people going off on limbs, experimnting, and trying to learn. By all means, let them learn. I just don't see a reason to make the BIOS user-friendly, because there's nothing there users need to tweak or reconfigure in order for their computer to work. If, otoh, you really want to know how stuff works, the BIOS user interface is not going to stop you, it's hardly more complex than a typical 1990's end-user application. Some even have "F1 for Help"

Same for Linux, by the way. It needs to be easy to use, at least in the parts that users have to deal with, but that's primarily applications, and desktop preferences.
I'd love to see you, or anyone else for that matter, make the case for "OS kernel development should be more user-friendly"

MisterGaribaldi
March 4th, 2011, 05:51 PM
@koenn:

Cleaning up the BIOS (which users of whatever stripe can and do have access to and can and do have occasion to directly interact with) and making the Kernel more user-friendly have nothing to do with each other. In fact, comparing them is just a red herring.

I don't see why you would fail to agree that the BIOS UI would benefit from a bit of both a cosmetic overhaul (let it still be 80 column ASCII + ANSI) and better in-built help and better wording. I "get" that geeks and mobo makers "don't give a s***" but that's still no excuse, really.

To the extent that you mean we ought not to lower the bar of expectations but rather keep it high and encourage new-comers to rise to the challenge and become self-sufficient and empowered, I'm with you 100%, but things like the BIOS aren't examples of minimalist programming so much as they are examples of convenience programming.

lisati
March 4th, 2011, 05:58 PM
IMO, whether it's BIOS, UEFI, or something else is largely irrelevant, no matter what kind of UI it has. You still need something in place to enable booting and to get the OS up and running.

koenn
March 4th, 2011, 06:45 PM
@koenn:

Cleaning up the BIOS (which users of whatever stripe can and do have access to and can and do have occasion to directly interact with) and making the Kernel more user-friendly have nothing to do with each other. In fact, comparing them is just a red herring.
Analogy: a cognitive process of transferring information or meaning from a particular subject to another particular subject, and the linguistic expression corresponding to such a process. (wikipedia)



I don't see why you would fail to agree that the BIOS UI would benefit from a bit of both a cosmetic overhaul (let it still be 80 column ASCII + ANSI) and better in-built help and better wording.
in low level technology like that, (superficial) cosmetics - "beautifying" -- mean nothing to me. As for wording, I prefer accuracy, and would hate to see technically accurate jargon replaced by more "user friendly, easier, plain english wording if that meant sacrificing accuracy. As for help: if there's something you don't understand in the BIOS, look it up. So OK, in some cases the Help could be more helpful, but in most cases the problem is going to be that you need to know and understand quite a few things about the computer as a whole to make sense out of one single BIOS value - no help file can fix that. So go learn about it. That was one of the points, wasn't it ? Give people a chance to learn ?

juancarlospaco
March 4th, 2011, 06:49 PM
I hate that :

X BIOS: F8 = Boot Menu
Y BIOS: F11 = Boot Menu
Z BIOS: DEL + B = Boot Menu

wtf, make an Standard...

del_diablo
March 4th, 2011, 07:15 PM
IMO, whether it's BIOS, UEFI, or something else is largely irrelevant, no matter what kind of UI it has. You still need something in place to enable booting and to get the OS up and running.

THIS.
But for the sake of nitpicking: BIOS stands for Basic Input Output System, which can never be replaced. However, "BIOS" as in "the old legacy 16-bit thingy that Windows XP needs" should never have been called "BIOS" :P

aaaantoine
March 4th, 2011, 09:04 PM
I hate that :

X BIOS: F8 = Boot Menu
Y BIOS: F11 = Boot Menu
Z BIOS: DEL + B = Boot Menu

wtf, make an Standard...

This. And this is made worse by the fact that some BIOSes don't show you what the Setup Menu key is, or the POST screen isn't up long enough for you to spot what it is.

FuturePilot
March 4th, 2011, 09:34 PM
I hate that :

X BIOS: F8 = Boot Menu
Y BIOS: F11 = Boot Menu
Z BIOS: DEL + B = Boot Menu

wtf, make an Standard...

This this this!

MisterGaribaldi
March 4th, 2011, 10:33 PM
@koenn: A better analogy would be:

kernel = chipset, and BIOS = {hypothetical program giving users manipulative control over kernel settings and/or arguments passed at runtime}

And, I don't buy into your follow-up argument because it isn't only about your own personal needs, nor is improving the UI equivalent to dumbing down the users.

koenn
March 4th, 2011, 11:18 PM
@koenn: A better analogy would be:
kernel = chipset, and BIOS = {hypothetical program giving users manipulative control over kernel settings and/or arguments passed at runtime}
stubborn, eh?
try this: I think kernel development should be more user friendly. The comments in the source code should be more verbose and the wording such that regular users can understand the code too, not just system programmers. There should be a help file for people who are not fluent in C. The source repo should have a mouse operated GUI with wizards that assists people in modifying the code, even if they don't actually understand the operating system's design and implementation.

Make sense ?



And, I don't buy into your follow-up argument because it isn't only about your own personal needs, nor is improving the UI equivalent to dumbing down the users.
It's not just about personal preference. It's about UI beautification not being a cure for lack of knowledge. That may work somewhat at the usage level (say, the desktop environment), but not at the deeper levels (a kernel, the BIOS, ...) Refer to the analogy with kernel development.

MisterGaribaldi
March 4th, 2011, 11:41 PM
I already did respond to what you said. There's nothing further yet for me to respond to, other than to say your follow-up kernel analogy doesn't make sense. What does having a GUI environment inside the kernel source code (which makes no sense at all on its own) have to do with better developer comments or external (i.e. outside the kernel source) documentation?

juancarlospaco
March 5th, 2011, 01:12 AM
This this this!

there are something like an "open standards proposal website" ???,
we can include this and send mails to company to join the open free standard.

Also i want redundant keys (think old notebooks with damaged keyboards), like:
F7, F8 = Boot Menu
F3, F4 = BIOS Config

ubuntu-freak
March 5th, 2011, 01:53 AM
BIOS will be the name of the sentient internet which rules over us and keeps us as pets and slaves. So yes, there will be BIOS.

Dustin2128
March 5th, 2011, 04:17 AM
Hm, not really sure what all this animosity over BIOS is about. I find it easy to use whenever I need to change a system setting, and no matter what, it takes less than 5 seconds from powerup to grub.

NMFTM
March 5th, 2011, 04:49 AM
Hm, not really sure what all this animosity over BIOS is about. I find it easy to use whenever I need to change a system setting, and no matter what, it takes less than 5 seconds from powerup to grub.
Maybe they're talking about editing RAM timings, voltages, and things of that nature.

jerenept
March 5th, 2011, 05:07 AM
Maybe they're talking about editing RAM timings, voltages, and things of that nature.

I do that in my BIOS.

TechWiz2100
March 8th, 2011, 12:11 AM
@koenn
When did I say that everything should be dumbed down for the everyday user? I think you jumped into aggro mode far too quickly. Some things obviously are not designed nor should they be designed to be easily understood and modified by the casual user, like your engine for example. But there are things that should most definitely be more accessible to those who care to use and learn about it like the BIOS. What good is it to have something that you go to for troubleshooting and performance tuning if everything is encrypted with ridiculous acronyms and massive lack of documentation? It's like tryna figure out why you can't access your mail account because your browser just spit raw error codes at you and you don't know the meaning of those codes.

I personally feel your argument is invalid because you are comparing something that is inherently designed to be user accessible to something that is clearly designed for professional hands only. Oh and that engine you are talking about probably has far more documentation than your kernel and both are probably equally as complex, further digressing from your point.

jerenept
March 8th, 2011, 12:36 AM
@koenn
When did I say that everything should be dumbed down for the everyday user? I think you jumped into aggro mode far too quickly Some things obviously are not designed nor should they be designed to be easily understood and modified by the casual user, like your engine for example.
Agreed. Some users just cause damage, like once my father started his car after removing the oil filter. Oil flew everywhere.
But there are things that should most definitely be more accessible to those who care to use and learn about it like the BIOS. What good is it to have something that you go to for troubleshooting and performance tuning if everything is encrypted with ridiculous acronyms and massive lack of documentation? If you don't know what it is, like RAM timings, boot sequences, etc, you can really f-up a computer an irritate the tech support guy.

It's like tryna figure out why you can't access your mail account because your browser just spit raw error codes at you and you don't know the meaning of those codes.
gmail has always worked for me.


I personally feel your argument is invalid because you are comparing something that is inherently designed to be user accessible to something that is clearly designed for professional hands only. Oh and that engine you are talking about probably has far more documentation than your kernel and both are probably equally as complex, further digressing from your point.
BIOS setup was never designed to be user accessible, and engines are not for professional hands only. Maybe i am misunderstanding?

TechWiz2100
March 8th, 2011, 01:31 AM
If you don't know what it is, like RAM timings, boot sequences, etc, you can really f-up a computer an irritate the tech support guy.
Things that are useful for troubleshooting like IDE controller modes, ACPI modes and versions, HPET etc.. lots of things that could EASILY fix a non booting system that are poorly documented and shrouded in mystery. Obviously if you don't know what you are doing then the odds of you messing something up are higher but *most* of the stuff in BIOS that are not in the Advanced section are relatively harmless



gmail has always worked for me.

I apologize if I offend you but that is the stupidest response to an obviously hypothetical situation I have ever seen. GMail works fine for me as well but try imagining running into a mess of 404's, 508's, and 101's without explanation and then tell me that is user friendly



BIOS setup was never designed to be user accessible,
and engines are not for professional hands only. Maybe i am misunderstanding?

You are most definitely misunderstanding. The engine is clearly not meant for the average Joe to tinker with or else it would come with its own documentation on how to tinker with it. Since that is not the case, it is assumed that one is not to mess with it, much like close source software, one is assumed to use/interface with the software not tinker with its inner workings. And the BIOS is most definitely user accessible, of course your idea of user accessible and mine might be drastically different.

I would consider something that is UI-less to be user hostile but BIOS has an interface with its basic functions at least well defined.

koenn
March 8th, 2011, 09:41 PM
@TechWiz2100
I think we largely agree, and the "everything should be dumbed down" thing was actually more directed towards the OP than to you (I can see how having it in a post that starts with a reply to a quote froml you, may have caused confusion)

I do think we have different opinions on what is or should be user accessible. If an end user program, say gmail, emits cryptic error codes, that's a usuability issue. I just don't think the BIOS is an end user application. It's a tool for PC technicians. If you or I or anyone who takes an interest wants to play with it, no problem, but play by the technicians rules.
(as a side note, I'd prefer to get a raw 404 or a 505 rather than my browser telling me nothing but "there seems to be a problem. Click the link again or contact your network admin").
SO I don't agree that BIOS is "inherently designed to be user accessible".



What good is it to have something that you go to for troubleshooting and performance tuning if everything is encrypted with ridiculous acronyms and massive lack of documentation?
I'm not a PC tech, but the last time I looked at a BIOS I saw rather well-established abbreviations, and plain english, and a couple of technical terms the meaning of which was unclear to me. I consider the latter an indication of my lack of knowledge on PC technology rather than a flaw in the design of the BIOS UI.

The complexity of the BIOS, imo, is not an UI issue. It's a reflection of the IBM PC architecture, plus 30 years of accumulated extensions and workarounds.
I also wonder how much "troubleshooting" or "performance tweaking" one can really do in a userfriendly, accessible BIOS but without in depth knowledge of the actual architecture it represents.

Lucradia
March 9th, 2011, 01:52 AM
I don't agree that BIOS is "inherently designed to be user accessible".

By default, the BIOS boots to the HDD, and bypasses the removable drives for first boot. Yes, it is designed so that at least this is user accessible.

TechWiz2100
March 9th, 2011, 04:19 AM
I'm not a PC tech, but the last time I looked at a BIOS I saw rather well-established abbreviations, and plain english, and a couple of technical terms the meaning of which was unclear to me. I consider the latter an indication of my lack of knowledge on PC technology rather than a flaw in the design of the BIOS UI.

There are a lot of well established acronyms and abbreviations and such in the BIOS but the problem is that a lot of the more important things are not. For example, my desktop BIOS has an ACPI "version" setting where I can choose between V1, 2 or 3. Windows 7 boots in all 3, Windows XP only boots in I think 1 and 2, Fedora Core 8 - 9 booted in 3 only (old CDs I know) and OS X booted in 2 and 3. Meanwhile I can't find documentation to tell me the difference between the 3 versions and they are all clearly very different.

Things like that, while not necessarily documented in the BIOS should at least be available for users to find online or something. Maybe that's just me and my lack of knowledge but I do feel things should at least be better documented.

GabrielYYZ
March 9th, 2011, 05:28 AM
There are a lot of well established acronyms and abbreviations and such in the BIOS but the problem is that a lot of the more important things are not. For example, my desktop BIOS has an ACPI "version" setting where I can choose between V1, 2 or 3. Windows 7 boots in all 3, Windows XP only boots in I think 1 and 2, Fedora Core 8 - 9 booted in 3 only (old CDs I know) and OS X booted in 2 and 3. Meanwhile I can't find documentation to tell me the difference between the 3 versions and they are all clearly very different.

Things like that, while not necessarily documented in the BIOS should at least be available for users to find online or something. Maybe that's just me and my lack of knowledge but I do feel things should at least be better documented.

That motherboard is/was pre-june 2009, since that's the date v4 was introduced: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACPI#History

On topic: IMO, the BIOS needs to get "beautified" :P we're in 2011 and the BIOS is using atari 2600 graphics. Another thing that needs to be addressed is the complexity of the BIOS code, complexity as in "there's too much useless junk in most BIOS".

Another thing i would like to see is some kind of standard (yeah, i'm dreaming) but something that guarantees any BIOS working with any OS.

koenn
March 9th, 2011, 07:14 PM
For example, my desktop BIOS has an ACPI "version" setting where I can choose between V1, 2 or 3. Windows 7 boots in all 3, Windows XP only boots in I think 1 and 2, Fedora Core 8 - 9 booted in 3 only (old CDs I know) and OS X booted in 2 and 3. Meanwhile I can't find documentation to tell me the difference between the 3 versions and they are all clearly very different.

Things like that, while not necessarily documented in the BIOS should at least be available for users to find online or something.
http://www.acpi.info/ has the specs of each version.

But in the case you describe, I suppose the documentation you need is : which of these versions does the OS I'm trying to run, support - that's the info you need to make a decision on how to set that particular BIOS parameter, but this info should be provided by your OS manufacturer, not by the BIOS manufacturer (or the BIOS help file)

koenn
March 9th, 2011, 08:37 PM
By default, the BIOS boots to the HDD, and bypasses the removable drives for first boot. Yes, it is designed so that at least this is user accessible.
actually, that default depends on a decision by the BIOS manufacturer or the system builder (I've had systems that defaulted to a boot order of NIC -> Removeable devices -> HDDs).

In any case, a regular user uses applications. So booting to an operating system installed on a hard disk, without requiring user intervention, is a sane default, adequate for regular users. The use cases for having to modify boot order are rather limited, and (exclusively) relevant to sysadmins, PC techs, some hobbyists, ... : replacing the vendor-supplied operating system, certain dual-boot mechanisms, etc.

Even then, most vendors now have their motherbords/BIOS offer a readily accessible boot menu separate from the BIOS Setup program.

TechWiz2100
March 11th, 2011, 09:23 PM
On topic: IMO, the BIOS needs to get "beautified" :P we're in 2011 and the BIOS is using atari 2600 graphics.

I can already see it.... Game an Watch BIOS awesome April Fools prank xD