Posts by nighthacker2003@mastodon.social
(DIR) Post #A0QYP3pBLb9Q3Bjy0e by nighthacker2003@mastodon.social
2020-10-22T17:50:41Z
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@lundukeWindows
(DIR) Post #A0a27ImaRBeM7PDTiS by nighthacker2003@mastodon.social
2020-10-27T05:46:58Z
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@vertigoAFAIK, UEFI itself is good because it's less kludgy and more flexible. It's just that laptop manufacturers ahip crappy half-assed implementations. And secure boot is more often than not just "Windows only mode."@njoseph
(DIR) Post #A0g5xGgQx9G7TdZKoS by nighthacker2003@mastodon.social
2020-10-27T14:02:06Z
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@vertigoOut of curiosity, what's your opinion on coreboot?@njoseph
(DIR) Post #A0g5xNOG17sYHI7PxA by nighthacker2003@mastodon.social
2020-10-30T05:06:12Z
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@vertigo @njoseph Sorry it took me so long to reply, I had a lot of homework.I like the position that the system firmware should serve a single purpose (to load the host OS kernel image then get out of the way). However, I don't believe that BIOS (which you seem to prefer) does that either. It provides an entire abstraction layer that lets you access the machine's hardware using BIOS calls.
(DIR) Post #A0g5xQ9pjD7irQORO4 by nighthacker2003@mastodon.social
2020-10-30T05:06:20Z
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@vertigo @njoseph In modern devices, it often even emulates older hardware such as PS/2 keyboards and floppies so you can use new hardware on 40 year old OSes. It performs a diagnostic test of the hardware on every boot. It can perform heat management via SMM if the OS doesn't support ACPI. On some modern machines, it can even load kernels from the network. And my laptop's BIOS likes to change the screen brightness when the power source changes.
(DIR) Post #A0g5xST38jgQ1bOocK by nighthacker2003@mastodon.social
2020-10-30T05:07:39Z
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@vertigo @njoseph The main thing I don't like about BIOS is how it expects the kernel to be in a fixed position on the disk and have a fixed size, that happens to be way too small for modern kernels. In practice, this means that the BIOS loads a piece of code that does nothing but load another piece of code shoehorned in between the MBR and the first filesystem that depending on the installation might or might not have to load more code from the filesystem that then finally loads the kernel.
(DIR) Post #A0g5xUlCcDON8TuLBo by nighthacker2003@mastodon.social
2020-10-30T05:08:04Z
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@vertigo @njoseph I think it's better for the firmware to know how to use a filesystem so it can load the kernel directly from the drive in one step, regardless of the size, and maybe even add support for multiple kernels per physical disk eliminating the need for an on-disk boot menu. It makes the firmware more complex, but the overall process less complex.
(DIR) Post #A0g5xXxMjRu734cb44 by nighthacker2003@mastodon.social
2020-10-30T05:09:21Z
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@vertigo @njoseph That's why I initially liked UEFI, but as you pointed out it comes with a bunch of other nonsense (DRM boot, EFI shell, an entire OS, etc.) as part of the standard, so I think my opinion on UEFI is be changed. However, you seem to be much more knowledgeable on this than I am. Is there a reason why firmware shouldn't have filesystem support, or is it just that UEFI is shit? (Or are you tired of explaining this and I should look at your profile for your explanation of this?)
(DIR) Post #A0lRpc3ilT6wEn12kC by nighthacker2003@mastodon.social
2020-11-01T19:04:13Z
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@galenaHey, you might give people funny ideas! You are now DMCA'ed.@nvi @jae
(DIR) Post #A0w9xQuDr5ApiEA00m by nighthacker2003@mastodon.social
2020-11-06T23:38:00Z
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@galenaWasn't he also thr guy who wanted to ban trans people from the military?
(DIR) Post #A1SdhuHvAA064n5XEm by nighthacker2003@mastodon.social
2020-11-22T15:48:25Z
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@sudorebootI've always had Alt+Sysrq+F work, but never seen it triggered manualy, not even with earlyoom.@vaartis @fribbledom @carcinopithecus
(DIR) Post #A1Se2noeQAeE5JMSXo by nighthacker2003@mastodon.social
2020-11-22T15:55:22Z
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@sudoreboot @vaartis @fribbledom @carcinopithecus*automatically
(DIR) Post #A1f614UkZD7vqdXDsG by nighthacker2003@mastodon.social
2020-11-28T16:04:21Z
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@juantekCan't the browser just lie?
(DIR) Post #A1fsNiTxN6Wg2L1lFQ by nighthacker2003@mastodon.social
2020-11-29T00:57:47Z
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@clackeMy most recent hard drive death happened with only 2 bad sectors that had been there for months before. It just started rejecting all commands sent to it, and then was no longer recognized at all after being power cycled. Luckily, this happened after I noticed something wrong and migrated my installation to a spare disk. It failed while I was wiping it.
(DIR) Post #A29GIZMuSrBL9Elujo by nighthacker2003@mastodon.social
2020-12-12T22:09:11Z
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@fribbledomLaptop failure is quite annoying, but there may still be a few things to try if you haven't already. Removing the battery (including CMOS battery), unplugging, and pressing the power button may drain some capacitors which will help if something is in a weird state. You can also drain capacitors with screwdrivers. Jumper wires and baking aren't out of the question either.