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LawrenceC
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No. UEFI is a replacement for BIOS.

There is such a thing as a CSM - Compatibility Support Module. This is a UEFI module that emulates a BIOS to boot operating systems that only work with BIOS. This is an optional part of UEFI.

BIOS and UEFI are different enough that peripherals with boot ROMs (such as video cards and RAID cards) need BIOS or UEFI specific firmware to be useable at boot. If CSM is enabled, firmware that works only with BIOS can be used.


Motherboards come with a ROM device, often an SPI flash ROM. This holds whatever system firmware there is, regardless of whether it only supports BIOS interfaces and functions, UEFI interfaces and functions, or both. I believe this is what is meant by

"In reality, both legacy motherboards and UEFI-based motherboards come with BIOS ROMs, which contain firmware that performs the initial power-on configuration of the system before loading some third-party code into memory and jumping to it"

which is from the OSDev wiki link cited above.

Honestly, though I don't really understand what it's trying to say. It seems to be saying in a roundabout way that BIOS and UEFI perform the same overall function.

It's very likely that firmware developers have been or are taking most existing BIOS firmware code of theirs at the time and adding more code around it so it is UEFI compatible. This also makes it easier to implement/support a CSM to boot non-UEFI operating systems.

The UEFI standard is definitely intended to supersede the BIOS "standard" - and "standard" here is in quotes because it was a "de-facto standard" that emerged from companies (starting with Compaq) reverse-engineering and copying IBM's original 5150 PC released in 1981. UEFI is an actual standard with a spec you can download from uefi.org.

In 2020 Intel is no longer supporting BIOS and will provide code and resources for UEFI only.

No. UEFI is a replacement for BIOS.

There is such a thing as a CSM - Compatibility Support Module. This is a UEFI module that emulates a BIOS to boot operating systems that only work with BIOS. This is an optional part of UEFI.

BIOS and UEFI are different enough that peripherals with boot ROMs (such as video cards and RAID cards) need BIOS or UEFI specific firmware to be useable at boot. If CSM is enabled, firmware that works only with BIOS can be used.

No. UEFI is a replacement for BIOS.

There is such a thing as a CSM - Compatibility Support Module. This is a UEFI module that emulates a BIOS to boot operating systems that only work with BIOS. This is an optional part of UEFI.

BIOS and UEFI are different enough that peripherals with boot ROMs (such as video cards and RAID cards) need BIOS or UEFI specific firmware to be useable at boot. If CSM is enabled, firmware that works only with BIOS can be used.


Motherboards come with a ROM device, often an SPI flash ROM. This holds whatever system firmware there is, regardless of whether it only supports BIOS interfaces and functions, UEFI interfaces and functions, or both. I believe this is what is meant by

"In reality, both legacy motherboards and UEFI-based motherboards come with BIOS ROMs, which contain firmware that performs the initial power-on configuration of the system before loading some third-party code into memory and jumping to it"

which is from the OSDev wiki link cited above.

Honestly, though I don't really understand what it's trying to say. It seems to be saying in a roundabout way that BIOS and UEFI perform the same overall function.

It's very likely that firmware developers have been or are taking most existing BIOS firmware code of theirs at the time and adding more code around it so it is UEFI compatible. This also makes it easier to implement/support a CSM to boot non-UEFI operating systems.

The UEFI standard is definitely intended to supersede the BIOS "standard" - and "standard" here is in quotes because it was a "de-facto standard" that emerged from companies (starting with Compaq) reverse-engineering and copying IBM's original 5150 PC released in 1981. UEFI is an actual standard with a spec you can download from uefi.org.

In 2020 Intel is no longer supporting BIOS and will provide code and resources for UEFI only.

Source Link
LawrenceC
  • 75.5k
  • 17
  • 136
  • 218

No. UEFI is a replacement for BIOS.

There is such a thing as a CSM - Compatibility Support Module. This is a UEFI module that emulates a BIOS to boot operating systems that only work with BIOS. This is an optional part of UEFI.

BIOS and UEFI are different enough that peripherals with boot ROMs (such as video cards and RAID cards) need BIOS or UEFI specific firmware to be useable at boot. If CSM is enabled, firmware that works only with BIOS can be used.