From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with archive (Exim 4.43) id 1HizZu-0008J0-9G for mharc-grub-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 01 May 2007 17:08:06 -0400 Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1HizZs-0008EY-9O for grub-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 01 May 2007 17:08:04 -0400 Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1HizZq-0008EM-M0 for grub-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 01 May 2007 17:08:03 -0400 Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1HizZq-0008EJ-HO for grub-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 01 May 2007 17:08:02 -0400 Received: from [212.85.152.101] (helo=kotoba.storever.com) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1HizTV-0006Ca-4h for grub-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 01 May 2007 17:01:29 -0400 Received: from kotoba.oasis.nexedi.com (kotoba.oasis.nexedi.com [212.85.152.101]) by kotoba.storever.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 867DF3D11EDA8 for ; Wed, 2 May 2007 02:59:06 +0200 (CEST) Received: from [??1] (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by kotoba.storever.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 37ECE3D11EDA7 for ; Wed, 2 May 2007 02:59:06 +0200 (CEST) From: "Yoshinori K. Okuji" Organization: enbug.org To: The development of GRUB 2 Date: Tue, 1 May 2007 23:01:26 +0200 User-Agent: KMail/1.8.2 References: <20070501201001.GA21299@aragorn> In-Reply-To: <20070501201001.GA21299@aragorn> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200705012301.26473.okuji@enbug.org> X-Bogosity: No, tests=bogofilter, spamicity=0.000359, version=0.17.2 X-detected-kernel: Linux 2.6, seldom 2.4 (older, 4) Subject: Re: EFI and binary distributors X-BeenThere: grub-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: The development of GRUB 2 List-Id: The development of GRUB 2 List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 01 May 2007 21:08:04 -0000 On Tuesday 01 May 2007 22:10, Robert Millan wrote: > What is the recommended way for binary distributors of GRUB to support > PC/BIOS and EFI at the same time? Is it possible to build a mixed binary > that supports both systems somehow? (and if it isn't, are there plans or > ongoing work for that?) I don't think so. The size restriction is too severe for PC BIOS. One possibility is to bundle binary images both for PC BIOS and EFI in a package, and selectively use one of them by grub-install. But this has a serious issue, on a EFI platform which supports Legacy Boot, because the user can use both. Personally, I think it is much cleaner to use just EFI on EFI platforms instead of Legacy Boot. But this depends on a preference... For now, I have no good idea. > Also, which are the cpu platforms that may use EFI? From what I could > find, it seems that: > > - ia32 doesn't have it You forgot about Intel Mac. :) In fact, my Mac Mini is with Intel Core Solo, which definitely does not support 64-bit. > - ia64 always has it > - amd64 only has it on Intel-Macs, and will have it on more devices in > the future Do Intel Mac have AMD processors, or do you mean EM64T? If you just mean IA-32 architecture with 64-bit extensions (both Intel's and AMD's), the canonical name in GNU is "x86_64". > Am I missing something? No idea. In theory, nothing prevents porting EFI to other architectures. Wikipedia mentions XScale: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Firmware_Interface Okuji