Re: macbook EFI experiences

[Isaac Dupree <id@isaac.cedarswampstudios.org>]

Bean wrote:
> On Sat, May 31, 2008 at 12:06 AM, Isaac Dupree
> <id@isaac.cedarswampstudios.org> wrote:
>> Robert Millan wrote:
>>> On Fri, May 30, 2008 at 10:42:02AM -0400, Isaac Dupree wrote:
>>>> okay, I just tried a few days ago's grub2 CVS without patches for i386
>>>> efi, because presumably if that doesn't work for me then nothing else will
>>>> either (though it's possible that a working x86-64 would work better for
>>>> this particular EFI firmware, I suppose)
>>> Actually, I think it's better supported via grub-pc.  In BIOS we have a
>>> workaround for the keyboard bug.  Was there any other kind of trouble?
>> No it's not.  I can't use the keyboard on BIOS here, except sometimes for
>> one single keystroke or more if I get lucky (true for linux CD booting, not
>> just grub2); but the keyboard works fine on EFI and always has.  (Or was
>> that workaround you mentioned in grub2 introduced sometime in the last year,
>> in which case I should upgrade my grub2-bios installation?)
> 
> This problem should be gone by now, try the cvs version ?

okay, I guess I will try it

> BTW, I think you should use bios if you can. I remember seeing some
> post about the video driver needs video bios for initialization. In
> pure EFI mode, it will fallback to frame buffer mode which is slower.
> I don't know if this have been fixed by now.

It's fixed now for my hardware, Intel's new video driver in Xorg 7.3 
doesn't need any BIOS hacks or anything, I believe.  Anyway, I'll find 
out if it works just as soon as I manage to actually get into 
linux-kernel under EFI, so *if* it doesn't break, then I can keep using 
that and avoid (1) the unnecessary and potentially buggy CSM, (2) the 
hassles of installing a pc-bios-style bootloader on the header of one of 
my partitions. (and (3) be able to report bugs (in whatever software is 
affected) that happen later on when doing it that way.)  It can't hurt 
to try...

-Isaac