[GTALUG] UEFI bios/firmware

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Fri, Aug 07, 2015 at 03:41:48PM -0400, Steve Harvey wrote:
>   Hi Abby,
> 
>   Googling  UEFI BIOS disable  should bring up quite a few links.  
> Unfortunately, there is no standardized way of disabling the UEFI and
> switching back to using BIOS.  In general, there are basically two challenges:

That is NOT what you want to do.  You want to disable 'secureboot' not
disable 'UEFI'.  Not the same thing.  Nothing wrong with UEFI at all,
just secureboot.

>   1) getting the attention of the firmware that runs on initial startup
> before the operating system (Windows or Linux) gets to start,  and
> 
>   2) navigating the setup menus to disable the UEFI.
> 
>   Doing the first usually requires you to press or hold down a particular
> key at a particular time, which one and when depends upon the manufacturer.
> Depending upon a number of factors, you may or may not see a splash screen 
> providing a hint while booting.  Knowing the make and model of your computer
> can also help to determine this.  Most computer manufacturers should
> have user documentation in PDF format that you can download from their
> web site.

What you want is to enter the setup and find the setting that turns off
secureboot, and that is it.  Booting in UEFI mode is perfectly fine and
most linux distributions have no issue with UEFI (and grub2 works fine
with it too).  UEFI also means you get to use GPT for your partition
setup, which is much nicer than the old primary/extended/logical partition
crap we used to deal with.

If you really want, you can look for CSM (Compatibility Support Module)
boot mode and use that, which should boot with BIOS compatibility services
allowing you to install older OSs that require a BIOS.

-- 
Len Sorensen