UEFI from Linux enthusiast perspective

Another interesting topic with which I am dealing with recently is the UEFI. As we read on wikipedia: “The Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) is a specification that defines a software interface between an operating system and platform firmware.". The purpose of this specification is to create something what in the future fully replace the BIOS. Of course, as always in such a situation, I wonder what OpenSource and Linux gurus have to say. A brief googling and I found this. On the one hand are noticeable advantages: better design, formalized structure of the code, the C programming language, but you can feel that community fears and feared that the “standard” will be used in an inappropriate manner.

Therefore, I regularly read LWN RSS feeds, and it seems that on the horizon you can see already the first ideas on how to use UEFI to limit freedom. You can read about it in this article: “SFLC: Microsoft confirms UEFI fears, locks down ARM devices”. Personally, I really do not like it, because I believe that everyone who buys the equipment has the right to exploit its capabilities in such a manner it deems appropriate.

Of course, as usual, I change the subject. I wanted to write about the project TianoCore, which is an open source implementation of UEFI implemented by Intel. When you do not have the strength nor the resources to fight the system, use the system to gather strength and resources, and then start fighting. So in the next post I will try to describe my first experience with EDKII in emulated environment of QEMU.


Piotr Król
Founder of 3mdeb, a passionate advocate for open-source firmware solutions, driven by a belief in transparency, innovation, and trustworthiness. Every day is a new opportunity to embody the company's vision, emphasizing user liberty, simplicity, and privacy. Beyond business, a casual chess and bridge player, finding peace in nature and nourishment in theology, philosophy, and psychology. A person striving to foster a healthy community, grounded in collaboration and shared growth, while nurturing a lifelong curiosity and a desire to deeply understand the world.