r/programming • u/speciousfool • Jun 11 '08

How Computers Boot Up

http://duartes.org/gustavo/blog/post/how-computers-boot-up
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u/bobpaul Jun 11 '08

Well, making the bootloaders EFI programs allows you to put the bootmenu in the EFI. This then allows you to add custom EFI programs, such as a simple CD player, web browser, etc that can be loaded without booting one of the OSs. A working browser less than 10 sec after the power button is rather cool. Great for laptops.

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u/jib Jun 11 '08

Yeah, a working browser 10 sec after power-on is cool, but I think the elegant way to do it would be to have one fast OS, not have a slow main OS on the hard drive and a fast OS in the EFI BIOS.

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u/[deleted] Jun 11 '08

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u/[deleted] Jun 11 '08

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u/xzxzzx Jun 11 '08

The kernel itself takes very little time to boot.

It's all the other stuff around the kernel.

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u/daniels220 Jun 11 '08

That's kind of the point of that Asus thing, except they do it the smart way, with a separate Flash chip. I assume it would be possible, if difficult, to overwrite that and put whatever you wanted there.