On Tue, Jun 30, 2020 at 2:39 PM Tom Seewald <tseewald@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > > Given Hans proposal [1] introduced systemd/grub2/Gnome upstream changes > > it beg the question if now would not be the time to stop supporting > > booting in legacy bios mode and move to uefi only supported boot which > > has been available on any common intel based x86 platform since atleast > > 2005. > > > > Now in 2017 Intel's technical marketing engineer Brian Richardson > > revealed in a presentation that the company will require UEFI Class 3 > > and above as in it would remove legacy BIOS support from its client and > > datacenter platforms by 2020 and one might expect AMD to follow Intel in > > this regard. > > > > So Intel platforms produced this year presumably will be unable to run > > 32-bit operating systems, unable to use related software (at least > > natively), and unable to use older hardware, such as RAID HBAs (and > > therefore older hard drives that are connected to those HBAs), network > > cards, and even graphics cards that lack UEFI-compatible vBIOS (launched > > before 2012 – 2013) etc. > > > > This post is just to gather feed back why Fedora should still continue > > to support legacy BIOS boot as opposed to stop supporting it and > > potentially drop grub2 and use sd-boot instead. > > > > Share your thoughts and comments on how such move might affect you so > > feedback can be collected for the future on why such a change might be > > bad, how it might affect the distribution and scope of such change can > > be determined for potential system wide proposal. > > > > > > Regards > > > > Jóhann B. > > > > > > 1. > > https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/CleanupGnomeHiddenBootMenuIntegration > > The primary areas of concern I have about Fedora dropping grub2 and BIOS boot support are: > > 1. Users that are on systems that do not support UEFI, or that knowingly (or unknowingly) use BIOS boot on UEFI-capable systems. > > These people are likely to form a lasting negative impression of Fedora, as removing BIOS boot support would ostensibly mean that Fedora no longer runs on their systems (at least as configured). I have heard that the UEFI implementations on some (typically older) motherboards can be buggy, so many users may have a legitimate reason to still use BIOS boot on boards that advertise support for both. > > 2. How would dropping grub2 affect users that boot multiple operating systems? > > What manual steps, if any, would users need to take if they were previously using grub2 to support booting multiple operating systems. Would this change break existing multi-boot setups? What would happen if some of those multiple operating systems do not support UEFI for whatever reason? > > 3. Virtual machines typically default to BIOS boot. > > It's my understanding that libvirt, Virtual Box, Hyper-V (gen1 VMs only?), and many cloud providers default to using BIOS boot when creating virtual machines. If Fedora no longer works *by default* with common virtualization stacks I'd imagine many users will simply choose to no longer run or recommend Fedora. I think this is a place to handhold user, not to tell, say, libvirt it should drop BIOS boot altogether like others in this thread suggested. > 4. Support documentation for sd-boot > > Would this result in changes to how users access the boot menu, select a boot entry, or edit the kernel command line, etc? These actions of course aren't expected to be common but when they are needed it tends to be when a user is already experiencing problems and is under stress. Therefore if there are changes, hopefully these will be clearly documented to avoid confusion. > > 5. What does Fedora gain by dropping BIOS boot support? > > Perhaps it is obvious to others, but I think it is worth fully spelling out what the expected benefits are. This would help everyone more clearly see the trade-offs of this change. > _______________________________________________ > devel mailing list -- devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > To unsubscribe send an email to devel-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > Fedora Code of Conduct: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/ > List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines > List Archives: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx _______________________________________________ devel mailing list -- devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe send an email to devel-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Fedora Code of Conduct: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/ List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines List Archives: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
