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#31
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For those considering Linux...
On 12/21/2017 05:31 AM, John Doe wrote:
Doomsdrzej wrote: I had a motherboard a few years ago which had two BIOS chips. If the first one gets corrupted, the second is used as a failsafe. I believe the motherboard's brand was DFI. I don't know if their motherboards are any good but that feature, at the very least, was very welcome. That is GIGABYTE DualBIOS™ After losing my last motherboard to a BIOS problem, I made it a point to get one. I suppose Paul's version would work too. It could have been DFI, with a BIOS Savior installed. I don't know if they're still made, but they were popular a decade ago with overclocking enthusiasts. |
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#32
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For those considering Linux...
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#33
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For those considering Linux...
On Thu, 21 Dec 2017 10:23:53 -0500, Doomsdrzej wrote:
On Thu, 21 Dec 2017 02:41:00 -0600, wrote: On Wed, 20 Dec 2017 08:36:59 -0500, Doomsdrzej wrote: ... https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pa...tu-17.10-BIOS- Corrupter Linux corrupts your BIOS. Brilliant stuff. This comes as no surprise to me. I wanted to try Linux some years ago. I wrote some ISO files to flash drives to make them bootable, and runable. I began with several brand new flash drives. Not only did many of them not boot on any of my computers, but these ISO files literally killed the flash drives. Most of them had 5 writes or less. After killing 5 or 6 flash drives, I quit all linux use after that. Even the few distros that did boot, did not impresse me. I guess I can be thankful that my only losses were about $35 worth of flash drives, and not a motherboard or entire computer. Generally, you can fix those USB keys by re-formatting them using a Linux application. You basically need to re-arrange the partitions and make sure that there is only one formatted as FAT32. I've been in that situation for I empathize completely. I _keep_ getting lured into the Linux beast but am learning to resist it a lot better. It's like smoking except less satisfying. It's not fair to blame that on Linux, any download that supposedly claims to make a bootable usb could give same problem. Best fix is for supplier to provide clear instructions. A google search returns links for making a bootable usb from a cd/dvd but I've never tested. Note also that although you may not want to install or use linux, there are many utilities that do, such as offline virus checking etc. I will say this for windows, although it's a long painful process, creating a winpe stick using windows instructions seems to work ok and there are web instructions for installing extra windows programs like virus checkers. |
#34
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For those considering Linux...
On 2017 Dec 21, Doomsdrzej wrote
(in ): On Thu, 21 Dec 2017 21:45:50 +1100, Lucifer wrote: On Wed, 20 Dec 2017 15:44:11 -0500, Doomsdrzej wrote: On 20 Dec 2017 17:17:34 GMT, ray wrote: On Wed, 20 Dec 2017 08:36:59 -0500, Doomsdrzej wrote: ... https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pa...tu-17.10-BIOS- Corrupter Linux corrupts your BIOS. Brilliant stuff. One example of why I use Debian instead of Ubuntu. Probably a good point, but I hope you'll understand why some people might be reluctant to use Linux in general as a result of news like this. I have machines running Solaris 10 and 11. And some people still use Atari STs to produce music. What's your point? His point is that he’s so pure that he uses 12-year-old OSes (almost old enough to be of interest to Roy Moore!) rather than pollute his environment with Mickeysoft or, worse, crApple, products, |
#35
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For those considering Linux...
Wolffan wrote:
I have machines running Solaris 10 and 11. And some people still use Atari STs to produce music. What's your point? His point is that he’s so pure that he uses 12-year-old OSes (...) rather than pollute his environment with Mickeysoft or, worse, crApple, products, Well, for the truly paranoid... -- "If anything, Windows offers more choice - you have almost all of the best oss software, and a far larger range of proprietary software." - Tom Shillton |
#37
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For those considering Linux...
Doomsdrzej wrote:
rOn Thu, 21 Dec 2017 13:31:17 -0000 (UTC), John Doe wrote: Doomsdrzej wrote: Paul wrote: Doomsdrzej wrote: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pa..._item&px=Ubunt u-17.10-BIOS-Corrupter Linux corrupts your BIOS. Brilliant stuff. Before high-fiving yourself, also consider that UEFI has a checkered history. https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/25091.html "Samsung can end up bricked And I remember when I thought UEFI would make our lives simpler and reduce the amount of ridiculous hacks we needed. Sigh." There was also a case in Windows, where some Windows thing modifies a setting in the BIOS - and later when the user gets into the BIOS, there *no* way to put it back. So even Windows has a means of triggering trap-door behavior, by flipping something in the BIOS, that cannot be corrected from a BIOS setup screen. UEFI is just a bad bad idea. That's the message. I have no doubt of it. I tend to disable it entirely whenever I install Linux on this machine. It's always more trouble than it's worth. I *think* I'm covered, because my computer has a special USB port, with a flasher function built right in. You plug in a USB stick with a named BIOS file on it, push a button, and the image is loaded into the BIOS (there is a separate chip on the motherboard handling this). The function works so well, that even if the CPU is not in the CPU socket and it's "just a motherboard", the flashing function still works. You can buy my motherboard, connect an ATX power supply, plug in a USB stick, flash the BIOS, power off... and insert a previously-unsupported CPU and have it work. I haven't needed to use that, but that's my "insurance policy" in times of trouble. A very cool feature, I have to admit. If anything, it's protection against malware like the dreaded CIH virus of 1999. The traditional BIOS, also used to write to itself, but not anywhere nearly as badly designed as UEFI. It has a microcode cache (I loaded mine manually on my P2B-S), it has DMI/ESCD (mostly innocuous). Whereas UEFI can be bricked, just via the "NVRAM storage in flash" feature, an area used to hold various variables. I had a motherboard a few years ago which had two BIOS chips. If the first one gets corrupted, the second is used as a failsafe. I believe the motherboard's brand was DFI. I don't know if their motherboards are any good but that feature, at the very least, was very welcome. That is GIGABYTE DualBIOS™ After losing my last motherboard to a BIOS problem, I made it a point to get one. I suppose Paul's version would work too. Maybe Gigabyte does it too, but I checked and the model I had was a DFI LANParty for AMD Athlon XP processors. I ran an Athlon 3500+ and then 4800+ on it. Gigabyte invented the Dual BIOS. Not Diamond Flower. AFAIK, the Gigabyte usage pre-dates DFI usage. One thing you should know about the Gigabyte dual BIOS, is it's one boot block, and two main code blocks. If the boot block gets zorched, she ain't gonna boot. It needs an intact (single) boot block, to select between two main code block images. That means it is not fully redundant in the way that people might expect. Normally, main code blocks have a checksum, so the boot block can tell whether a main code block is bad or not. I don't know if DFI used the same implementation or not. Generally speaking, with a computer industry implementation, there's still the possibility of brick-age. The computer industry doesn't like to add a lot of custom logic for features like this, for cost reasons. If a feature exists in a motherboard LSI device, fine, you get it for free. If the logic must be provided "out-board", then nobody will do that. You generally don't find PALs or FPGAs on consumer motherboards. We used dual BIOS at work, however ours had two full images in separate flash devices, and it had a hardware arbiter to switch from one image to the other. After two reboots, you would have tested both of them, if one was in a failure state and wouldn't boot. (This is in a piece of communications equipment, not a PC Compatible computer.) I couldn't tell you who has a patent on that idea. Hell, it might have been used in a spacecraft in the 1960's for all I know. If Gigabyte had a patent on theirs, it's hard to see how DFI would have gotten away with it. Or vice versa. Paul |
#38
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For those considering Linux...
5 wrote:
On 12/21/2017 05:31 AM, John Doe wrote: Doomsdrzej wrote: I had a motherboard a few years ago which had two BIOS chips. If the first one gets corrupted, the second is used as a failsafe. I believe the motherboard's brand was DFI. I don't know if their motherboards are any good but that feature, at the very least, was very welcome. That is GIGABYTE DualBIOS™ After losing my last motherboard to a BIOS problem, I made it a point to get one. I suppose Paul's version would work too. It could have been DFI, with a BIOS Savior installed. I don't know if they're still made, but they were popular a decade ago with overclocking enthusiasts. There is no serial 8 pin version of a BIOS Savior. On motherboards that don't have socketed Flash, you can't use a BIOS Savior (without some soldering iron work). The BIOS Savior, might have stopped around the PLCC Flash era (the "square" BIOS chips). A lot of motherboards now, the 8 pin Flash chip is soldered down. There is a pin header next to it (or a pad pattern), with maybe seven contacts, and that has been used on occasion for re-programming. When the 8 pin format first came out, there was more interest in providing a pin header. But to save $0.07, they eventually remove interfaces like that to save money. You can still gain access to the 8 pin DIP flash, using a logic probe style clip. This shows the "hacker spirit" for re-programming serial flash. https://learn.adafruit.com/programmi...akout/overview And this product shows a clip you can use, to connect electrically to a 8 pin flash, without using a soldering iron. There must be sufficient clearance around the IC, to fit the clip and clamp it in place. You must orient the clip properly, to avoid accidents (no alignment feature prevents improper connections). If you rotate this clip 180 degrees, and apply power, the serial flash gets fried. https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon....SL._SX342_.jpg You still need a "lead set" to plug onto the individual pins on that big clip, to run it off to your protoboard. You can see the business end required, on some of the harnesses here. These are harnesses you find laying around on benchtops in a hardware lab. http://hobbycomponents.com/1707-thic...lip-bundle.jpg I don't think I've run into anyone yet, who needed help with their 8 pin serial flash. Which means the procedures for updating a BIOS, must have improved drastically compared to the "old days". I ended up forwarding a lot of people to "badflash.com" for help with the older BIOS Flash chip types. Using a BIOS Savior was one way to avoid the expense of (eventually) ending up needing help from the folks at badflash.com. But the BIOS Savior company, I don't know why they effectively withdrew from the business. I'm pretty sure they could have come up with solutions for newer motherboards, if there was money in it. At one time, Asus Tech Support in North America, was offering a BIOS re-programming service, but it's pretty hard finding the web page with details. And they might have stopped offering that service (as the Asus EStore has disappeared too). When I type in "estore.asus.com" now, some wholesale-type page appears instead, like they weren't making money working with "Joe Lunchbox" people :-) Paul |
#39
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For those considering Linux...
mechanic wrote:
On Wed, 20 Dec 2017 15:44:11 -0500, Doomsdrzej wrote: On 20 Dec 2017 17:17:34 GMT, ray carter wrote: On Wed, 20 Dec 2017 08:36:59 -0500, Doomsdrzej wrote: ... https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pa...tu-17.10-BIOS- Corrupter Linux corrupts your BIOS. Brilliant stuff. One example of why I use Debian instead of Ubuntu. Probably a good point, but I hope you'll understand why some people might be reluctant to use Linux in general as a result of news like this. Seems to be an Intel driver problem that Ubuntu might/should have caught in their testing of new kernels. See the comments on the site listed above for more insight. An inquiring mind might ask "why does that driver exist?" Why is there a driver for that, in the first place ? The BIOS is supposed to pass ACPI tables to the OS during boot handoff. Wasn't that good enough ? Why are we doing I/O to SPI ??? An attempt to overwrite Intel ME or something ? Or was the bus I/O intended for some other device on the same bus ? For lots of computer-type stuff, there is a BIOS interface for requesting low-level operations. (That provides a layer of insulation.) You hardly ever want access to every fricken thing underneath, because stuff like this happens. Paul |
#40
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For those considering Linux...
On Thu, 21 Dec 2017 13:13:31 -0500, Wolffan
wrote: On 2017 Dec 21, Doomsdrzej wrote (in ): On Thu, 21 Dec 2017 21:45:50 +1100, Lucifer wrote: On Wed, 20 Dec 2017 15:44:11 -0500, Doomsdrzej wrote: On 20 Dec 2017 17:17:34 GMT, ray wrote: On Wed, 20 Dec 2017 08:36:59 -0500, Doomsdrzej wrote: ... https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pa...tu-17.10-BIOS- Corrupter Linux corrupts your BIOS. Brilliant stuff. One example of why I use Debian instead of Ubuntu. Probably a good point, but I hope you'll understand why some people might be reluctant to use Linux in general as a result of news like this. I have machines running Solaris 10 and 11. And some people still use Atari STs to produce music. What's your point? His point is that he’s so pure that he uses 12-year-old OSes (almost old enough to be of interest to Roy Moore!) rather than pollute his environment with Mickeysoft or, worse, crApple, products, Speaking of Roy Moore, do you have concrete evidence that the allegations are true? |
#41
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For those considering Linux...
On 12/21/2017 11:15 AM, Paul wrote:
5 wrote: On 12/21/2017 05:31 AM, John Doe wrote: Doomsdrzej wrote: I had a motherboard a few years ago which had two BIOS chips. If the first one gets corrupted, the second is used as a failsafe. I believe the motherboard's brand was DFI. I don't know if their motherboards are any good but that feature, at the very least, was very welcome. That is GIGABYTE DualBIOS™ After losing my last motherboard to a BIOS problem, I made it a point to get one. I suppose Paul's version would work too. It could have been DFI, with a BIOS Savior installed. I don't know if they're still made, but they were popular a decade ago with overclocking enthusiasts. There is no serial 8 pin version of a BIOS Savior. On motherboards that don't have socketed Flash, you can't use a BIOS Savior (without some soldering iron work). The BIOS Savior, might have stopped around the PLCC Flash era (the "square" BIOS chips). A lot of motherboards now, the 8 pin Flash chip is soldered down. There is a pin header next to it (or a pad pattern), with maybe seven contacts, and that has been used on occasion for re-programming. When the 8 pin format first came out, there was more interest in providing a pin header. But to save $0.07, they eventually remove interfaces like that to save money. You can still gain access to the 8 pin DIP flash, using a logic probe style clip. This shows the "hacker spirit" for re-programming serial flash. https://learn.adafruit.com/programmi...akout/overview And this product shows a clip you can use, to connect electrically to a 8 pin flash, without using a soldering iron. There must be sufficient clearance around the IC, to fit the clip and clamp it in place. You must orient the clip properly, to avoid accidents (no alignment feature prevents improper connections). If you rotate this clip 180 degrees, and apply power, the serial flash gets fried. https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon....SL._SX342_.jpg You still need a "lead set" to plug onto the individual pins on that big clip, to run it off to your protoboard. You can see the business end required, on some of the harnesses here. These are harnesses you find laying around on benchtops in a hardware lab. http://hobbycomponents.com/1707-thic...lip-bundle.jpg I don't think I've run into anyone yet, who needed help with their 8 pin serial flash. Which means the procedures for updating a BIOS, must have improved drastically compared to the "old days". I ended up forwarding a lot of people to "badflash.com" for help with the older BIOS Flash chip types. Using a BIOS Savior was one way to avoid the expense of (eventually) ending up needing help from the folks at badflash.com. But the BIOS Savior company, I don't know why they effectively withdrew from the business. I'm pretty sure they could have come up with solutions for newer motherboards, if there was money in it. At one time, Asus Tech Support in North America, was offering a BIOS re-programming service, but it's pretty hard finding the web page with details. And they might have stopped offering that service (as the Asus EStore has disappeared too). When I type in "estore.asus.com" now, some wholesale-type page appears instead, like they weren't making money working with "Joe Lunchbox" people :-) Paul Don't suppose you have a link to a fixit procedure that a mortal EE could implement? I still have that gateway computer. Has unlabeled pads around the chip. I found a BIOS upgrade that claims to let you disable UEFI. Might be an interesting winter project. Problem is that I have no details. I'd rather not desolder the chip. How do we keep the CPU from conflicting with the programmer? What's in the bios update file? How do I determine what to copy to what chip addresses? I suspect it's simple the second time you do it. |
#42
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For those considering Linux...
On 2017-12-21 3:25 PM, Doomsdrzej wrote:
On Thu, 21 Dec 2017 13:13:31 -0500, Wolffan wrote: On 2017 Dec 21, Doomsdrzej wrote (in ): On Thu, 21 Dec 2017 21:45:50 +1100, Lucifer wrote: On Wed, 20 Dec 2017 15:44:11 -0500, Doomsdrzej wrote: On 20 Dec 2017 17:17:34 GMT, ray wrote: On Wed, 20 Dec 2017 08:36:59 -0500, Doomsdrzej wrote: ... https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pa...tu-17.10-BIOS- Corrupter Linux corrupts your BIOS. Brilliant stuff. One example of why I use Debian instead of Ubuntu. Probably a good point, but I hope you'll understand why some people might be reluctant to use Linux in general as a result of news like this. I have machines running Solaris 10 and 11. And some people still use Atari STs to produce music. What's your point? His point is that he’s so pure that he uses 12-year-old OSes (almost old enough to be of interest to Roy Moore!) rather than pollute his environment with Mickeysoft or, worse, crApple, products, Speaking of Roy Moore, do you have concrete evidence that the allegations are true? You mean other than the utterly obvious implication of him saying he never dated a girl "without her mother's permission". Hint for you: if you're dating adults, you don't need permission. |
#43
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For those considering Linux...
mike wrote:
Don't suppose you have a link to a fixit procedure that a mortal EE could implement? I still have that gateway computer. Has unlabeled pads around the chip. I found a BIOS upgrade that claims to let you disable UEFI. Might be an interesting winter project. Problem is that I have no details. I'd rather not desolder the chip. How do we keep the CPU from conflicting with the programmer? What's in the bios update file? How do I determine what to copy to what chip addresses? I suspect it's simple the second time you do it. Well, I don't have a Gateway, and I don't know what they're trying to offer you in this case. This might be a box with one of the older Intel inspired EFI designs (I would have to go look up the details on one of those). Normally, you offer a CSM code module, to add legacy BIOS behavior to a UEFI BIOS. That's what modern BIOS have. Mine, for example, offers to switch to CSM only, UEFI only, or auto-detect (you select a boot drive, it figures it out). Mine has everything I need to test scenarios, all except a TPM and Secure Boot. Which is fine by me. A UEFI-only BIOS, would be missing a CSM module (a piece of code). If the BIOS is an earlier version, there were EFI BIOS which might not be quite as mature. I would expect some of the earlier ones to be less flexible in their approach, or have outright bugs ("brick-able"). BIOS flashing, the operation itself, is pretty simple. You erase segment after segment, and reprogram them. The BIOS chip, if it's a boot block flash, can have a low 8KB segment or a high 8KB segment, which is managed a bit separately from the rest. And a persistent chunk of code might be designed to run in there. The presence of such a code, is intended to make recovery from a bad flash possible. An 8KB code segment, isn't big enough to run a video display, so recovery is "done blind". You could, in theory, flash upgrade the main portion of such chips, leaving the boot block intact. If the flash fails, you can do a "blind flash" and attempt to put it back together again. If the flash fails and your plan B doesn't work out, then it's soldering iron time for the Flash soldered to the motherboard. On a PLCC, you can buy a $100 pair of micro snipper pliers (I broke mine), and cut the legs on the chip one by one. (Yes, the center to center is pretty damn tight...) https://sc01.alicdn.com/kf/HTB1YjFOL...pg_220x220.jpg That makes it easier for someone who doesn't have a hot air de-soldering station. Things you cannot get the snippers on, you can use a special low temperature solder (Chip Quik), to make it easier to remove surface mount components (again, because you lack a hot air rework setup). Once you coat all the solder pads with Chip Quik, you could just turn the board upside-down, heat the lid on the chip, and the surface mount PLCC chip just falls off. Chip Quik melts at such a low temperature, all the other solder joints remain intact. http://www.chipquik.com/store/index.php ******* When mention of EFI/UEFI first came out, there were some BIOS flashes offered, to change a legacy BIOS motherboard to a UEFI BIOS motherboard. But that practice stopped almost immediately. From then on, you either got legacy motherboards or you got UEFI motherboards, but with no secondary file offered to change them over. It costs money to make both versions, license money, and the novelty of offering both wore off real fast. I think the BIOS companies may have promoted this, with relaxed pricing, during the interval where "catastrophies" were likely. You may have a product with CSM added or subtracted, rather than a file which is a legacy design and a completely different design which is UEFI based. I don't think there is a problem attempting to do this, the problem is what happens if it doesn't work and the thing is bricked. But that's aways been the case (unless you owned a BIOS Savior, in which case you can plan ahead, and with one of two Flash chips bricked, you survive to live another day). When you plug in a BIOS Savior, you have a total of two flash chips. The second chip holds your "known-working" copy, and a slide switch selects chip A or chip B. People releasing hacked BIOS to the Internet, they would use those for testing, so the people on the Internet weren't used as guinea pigs. Paul |
#44
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For those considering Linux...
On Thu, 21 Dec 2017 16:16:30 -0800, Alan Baker
wrote: On 2017-12-21 3:25 PM, Doomsdrzej wrote: On Thu, 21 Dec 2017 13:13:31 -0500, Wolffan wrote: On 2017 Dec 21, Doomsdrzej wrote (in ): On Thu, 21 Dec 2017 21:45:50 +1100, Lucifer wrote: On Wed, 20 Dec 2017 15:44:11 -0500, Doomsdrzej wrote: On 20 Dec 2017 17:17:34 GMT, ray wrote: On Wed, 20 Dec 2017 08:36:59 -0500, Doomsdrzej wrote: ... https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pa...tu-17.10-BIOS- Corrupter Linux corrupts your BIOS. Brilliant stuff. One example of why I use Debian instead of Ubuntu. Probably a good point, but I hope you'll understand why some people might be reluctant to use Linux in general as a result of news like this. I have machines running Solaris 10 and 11. And some people still use Atari STs to produce music. What's your point? His point is that he’s so pure that he uses 12-year-old OSes (almost old enough to be of interest to Roy Moore!) rather than pollute his environment with Mickeysoft or, worse, crApple, products, Speaking of Roy Moore, do you have concrete evidence that the allegations are true? You mean other than the utterly obvious implication of him saying he never dated a girl "without her mother's permission". Hint for you: if you're dating adults, you don't need permission. So you have none and are operating entirely off of assumptions, like with the "Russian collusion" garbage. You're an idiot, Baked Anus. Possibly dumber than Peter the Klöwn, John Gohde and Michael Glasser of Prescott, Arizona. With that in mind, *plonk* |
#45
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For those considering Linux...
On Thu, 21 Dec 2017 19:51:05 -0500, Wolf K
wrote: On 2017-12-21 18:25, Doomsdrzej wrote: [...] Speaking of Roy Moore, do you have concrete evidence that the allegations are true? You mean, apart from what the victims said? You mean what the _alleged_ victims said and supported with unverified evidence. Be kinda hard to get, since kiddie-diddlers take great care not to be observed. So you believe that people are guilty until proven innocent. I don't want to live in the same world as you, Comrade. |
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