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by kokada 670 days ago
However each OpenWRT router also has its own custom bootloader AFAIK. This is why you need different images for different devices, and can't create a single image for everything. UEFI on the other hand you just build one image and it works everywhere.
1 comments
blueflow 670 days ago
> UEFI on the other hand you just build one image and it works everywhere.

Thats the theory. Practice looks like that: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-efi/20200907170021.GA2284449@r...

If Vendors couldn't get the BIOS consistently right in the 80ies, why would they get UEFI consistently right now?

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kokada 670 days ago
Yes, UEFI is messy, not saying you will never have issues. But on the other hand, in OpenWRT you literally need to build an image for each device, something that you (almost) never have to do with UEFI or BIOS. Or when was the last time you had to build a specific image for a x86_64 laptop? If this happened to you, I am curious, this would probably make a nice blog post.

By the way, I am not saying that UEFI is not complicated, but there is probably a middle ground between "we need to build a specific image for this device because its bootloader is dumb" and "we have a f* operational system as a bootloader that works everywhere but is full of holes".

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blueflow 670 days ago
> Or when was the last time you had to build a specific image for a x86_64 laptop?

iwlwifi firmware blobs..

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kokada 670 days ago
This isn't related to UEFI itself though.
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blueflow 670 days ago
Not directly, but making bootable images is much easier if your firmware is stateless and does not require setup with efibootmgr.
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p_l 669 days ago
That's what fallback bootloader path is for, though...
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p_l 670 days ago
That's partly because nesrly nobody, including Linux vendors, actually pushes or checks for parameters being passed from BootVar to executable. Just like barely anyone apparently supports BootVar hotkeys.

Nobody uses it so nobody actually bothers with it, and even Linux defsulted to storing the params in files or kernel itself because good luck finding out you can put them in BootVar at all.

It's still miles better than it was with BIOS, or even Unix workstations (including OpenFirmware ones) with their "emergency releases" of updated OS just to make it boot on new gear

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