[LAU] NOW - UEFI

[Len Ovens]

On Fri, 29 Aug 2014, dale wrote:

> This has caused various headaches I have kind learned to live with. Main
> one being relating to screen brightness. If I set a low default screen
> brightness in Windows then it seems to change the range of brightness
> Linux can display. This was even more noticable when running LiveUSB
> distros! I actually couldn't get the screen bright enough to see what I
> was doing without setting the level within Windows bright again!

Is there a setting in regular bios for screen brightness? EFI my leave 
some variables around that the OS can continue to manipulat after boot... 
wonderful :P

> Then I read (or skimmed) this yesterday and feel even more confused.
> https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/UEFI

I see what you mean, every time I thought I was getting somewhere, I got 
sent to yet another page. The most I got out of it was that EFI is intel's 
answer to grub but with more control of the firware settings at the same 
time. The old bios included calls to access some of the HW, but no one 
used them as they were not muti-task/user friendly. It appears EFI does 
the same thing and windows uses it and Linux does not know how to access 
at least part of it. (or windows sets up its own calls within it)


> But I am starting to think I should try enabling it with a Linux
> install. Especially as I plan to completely banish Windows from the
> computer now... But I thought I would ask what more experienced Linux
> users have to say about UEFI mode vs BIOS/Legacy mode.

You will get some I don't doubt... it may be hard to tell the truth from 
FUD  ;)   EFI and Linux are still relatively new (3.10ish) and complaints 
found in one kernel version may no longer be true.

--
Len Ovens
www.ovenwerks.net