Linux EFI?

[Nadim Hoque]

My question is do you have this ability in BIOS? All EFI is the boot code
for the mother board so that it can initialize the hardware and boot the
os. Yes there is a command line interface if the manufacturer decided to
put one in. The purpose of UEFI was to over come some of the limitations of
BIOS (particularly the 2tb boot partition limitation).To be honest the
reason one would need to really interact with it these days is to change
the boot order or to over clock the CPU. Essentially EFI simply replaced
BIOS as the boot code for the computer

Regarding the recovery, yes there should be a way to recover the UEFI code
on the computer. You would have to go to the manufactures website and
download the boot able iso with the UEFI binaries on it. You might have to
dig a little bit because most sites will list the updates and not the full
image. Technically speaking the flash memory is to store the main EFI code
but there is a small portion that is read only with the sole purpose of
booting a CD-ROM to install the full UEFI image. The only issue is again
the manufacture has to supply the image and in the worst case you do not
find it you might need to contact support to get it, if you can.

PS. I used UEFI and EFI interchangably because they are pretty much the
same thing.

On Sun, Mar 12, 2017 at 12:37 AM, Eric Oyen <eric.oyen at icloud.com> wrote:

> these days, speech can be handled almost entirely in software. the only
> hardware needed is a basic sound device.
>
> thats what I use here on the mac. voiceover screen reader talks  on the
> system sound device. It's pretty much all software at this point. The same
> for jaws or NVDA in windows and definitely the same way for any of the half
> dozen or so text to speech engines available in linux.
>
> BrlTTY is the lightest weight of any of them and also carries the least
> dependencies. Any libraries needed can be compiled in.
>
> I may have to sit down, turn on the linux machine and actually compile a
> source package for BrlTTY and see how much it takes on disk and how much
> memory it might use.
>
>
> On Mar 12, 2017, at 12:12 AM, Steve Litt wrote:
>
> > On Sat, 11 Mar 2017 15:30:38 -0700
> > Eric Oyen <eric.oyen at icloud.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Steve, the wiki article does explain a lot, but there is no real
> >> support for blind IT personnel in it, let alone any support for those
> >> of us who are just plain computer users with some advanced skills.
> >
> > You still didn't answer what EFI is: Is it the boot method, or is it
> > something completely different, like Enhanced Fortified Interface?
> >
>
> I believe someone else already answered this. Its basically a mini OS. It
> behaves in a similar fashion to a command line interface in that it is
> fully interactive. THis is far more flexible than the old standard Bios
> that only let you modify a few settings and not much else.
>
> >>
> >> It's a nice command line interface that has a lot of the usual basic
> >> linux/unix utilities and programs, but no speech or braille support.
> >
> > What's a nice command line interface? Far as I know, the UEFI I've seen
> > acts pretty much like the old BIOS interface acted.
> >
> >>
> I didn't know of any old BIOS that contained an executable memory test
> program (memtest-86 is the closest utility I can think of).
>
> >> Right now, I am composing a letter to the UEFI forum members in hopes
> >> that someone over there might listen and do some research. I am even
> >> offering some suggestions on how this can be done (given my
> >> experience with Ubuntu and Vinux respectively, it can be done). My
> >> only difficulty is that I am not a coder
> >
> > I don't know how expensive text to speech interfaces are. Given that
> > they existed on CPM machines in the 1980's, I imagine they're cheap
> > enough to put into a computer's pre-boot firmware.
> >
> >>
> read my response in the first paragraph. :)
>
> >> Now, the wiki doesn't specifically stipulate what OS the UEFI is
> >> based on (and yes, its a bit more than a bios and less than a real
> >> full blown OS). what I do know is that it has a kernel, some basic
> >> utilities and a user interface. As far as I am concerned, thats a
> >> basic OS if there ever was one.
> >>
> >> so, this is what I want to do and it's the reason behind my original
> >> question. Making the UEFI accessible to those of us who are blind and
> >> working in the tech sector would certainly improve our capabilities
> >> as employees. It would be built-in accommodation without adding a lot
> >> of expense to the hardware.
> >
> > Assuming you're speaking of the configuration that happens when you hit
> > that special key combo pre-boot, I agree with you, although I have no
> > idea of the expense or cheapness. Other than text to speech being on
> > CPM computers in the 1980's :-)
> >> yeah, those days are long gone. so, also are the days of the $5,000
> hardware speech synthesizer. telesensory used to make such units. They were
> ungodly expensive and required a serial port and a tsr program running in
> background. I sure do miss the old CP/M machines. you could do a lot with
> them.
>
> >> So, with that being said, would it be possible? Given all the
> >> technology available, I say yes. So, what about the rest of you?
> >
> > Yes, but I'm still confused, because as far as I can see this thread has
> > nothing to do with Linux and everything to do with stuff that happens
> > before the initramfs begins to run. I'm not getting huffy and calling
> > it offtopic, I was just confused because I assumed it was about Linux,
> > which made the whole thing hard to understand.
> >
> > By the way, when you're talking to the UEFI guys, could you ask them to
> > have a special way to install a failsafe UEFI in case something
> > somebody does to their /proc/efi or whatever bricks their hardware?
> > This OS access to the firmware boot creates the first time since the
> > Chyrnobyl Virus around 2001 that software stuff can brick a mobo. I've
> > heard cases of people who, for whatever reason, did rm -rf /proc
> > assuming it would only affect their hard disk or RAM, and it nailed the
> > internal UEFI storage. Or these defective programs that fill up UEFI
> > storage to the point where the computer won't run well enough to delete
> > it, bricking the mobo. Seriously, it shouldn't be possible for a user
> > to destroy his hardware without a hammer.
> >
>
> well, I think they are working on something like that now because of the
> leaks regarding the CIA mess. having a failsafe UEFI image available to
> restore the system would certainly be handy.-eric
> from the central office of the Technomage Guild, access technology dept.
>
> ---------------------------------------------------
> PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss at lists.phxlinux.org
> To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings:
> http://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
>



-- 
Nadim Hoque
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.phxlinux.org/pipermail/plug-discuss/attachments/20170312/f2144d51/attachment.html>