[bdhess]

More config options means more to test and support, so more cost. The manufacturers who are buying lower end motherboards/chipsets at scale don’t need the feature. And virtually no consumer installs a PCI-E device, ever.

So basically, it’s an argument to make all computers more expensive, in order to subsidize hobbyists.

[hakfoo]

I'm sort of amazed these days that we still have commercial BIOSes (well, UEFIs)

They're not a selling point, even for the enthusiasts who buy individual motherboards.

You'd think that that by now, the chipset vendors would provide a reference Coreboot image for each new platform, (which, since it would be more or less for debugging purposes, would have MAX OPTIONS) and then the motherboard manufacturers would do the bare minimum to cut off any features not relevant to their boards or swap in modules for whichever small technical deltas-- different audio chipsets or clock generators-- they actually make underneath the garish silkscreen and RGB strips.

[jeroenhd]

Motherboard manufacturers would much rather pay AMI or Insyde a non-insignificant amount of money to make all BIOS development go away.

They could hire people to do the work for them, but that'd require finding and vetting people with the necessary skills without the knowledge of how to do so. As long as BIOS manufacturers can sell their services for cheaper than setting up an extra firmware department, they'll do good business.

[winocm]

Honestly, if someone made a reference platform setup utility (and BDS initialization screen) for EFI systems with a familiar-ish UI and got it into upstream git, then I think a lot of the value add of commercial firmware would probably dissipate.

[hkgjjgjfjfjfjf]

Tianocore

[winocm]

That’s the reference UI, I’m referring to something more akin to whatever ships on motherboards these days.

[crote]

The problem with this argument is that 1) bifurcation often still isn't available on enthusiast-level motherboards which are filled with features catered to hobbyists, and 2) all motherboards are using variations on the same handful of BIOS firmware images.

Same-slot bifurcation controlled by the BIOS requires basically zero additional testing. If it works on one board, it's pretty much guaranteed to work on another. After all, it's nothing more than a feature flag toggle.

They have already invested the money into developing the software feature, because some boards do have bifurcation. So why isn't it available on on all enthusiast-level boards? Or even worse, why are they spending extra time and energy into disabling it on cheap motherboards?

[reginald78]

If the board has PCI-E slots, it should support their features. If customers never used them they would have been dropped for cost reasons and no one would care. And indeed there are plenty of mini PCs and laptops where that is the case. Presumably people not buying those have their reasons.

[zamadatix]

If motherboard vendors are doing this out of only leaving settings for the things they've properly QA'd and can guarantee to work 100% of the time then half of the settings of most boards are in need of disabling as well.

[JackSlateur]

GPU and NVMe are PCI-e devices, they are both widespreads, so I do not get your point