Hi, The EFI is a specification that defines a software interface between an operating system and a platform firmware. The Extensible Firmware Interface is a much larger, much more complex OS-like replacement for the old BIOS firmware present in at least all IBM personal computers. The EFI really takes care of a lot of things, including removing the need for a dedicated boot loader. It also has a lot of capabilities for disk support, drivers, and so-forth. I believe it does have a shell environment, in fact, however it is rarely used and only used to execute other EFI applications. It's really extensive, and it has a lot of possibilities. I believe you can even develop for EFI to test drivers and such.
Regards, Nic Skype: Kvalme MSN Messenger: nico...@home3.gvdnet.dk AIM: cincinster yahoo Messenger: cin368 Facebook Profile My Twitter On Mar 5, 2010, at 11:21 PM, Brent Harding wrote: > I thought the EFI exists as a hidden partition on the hard drive, so if I had > to replace the hard drive with one Apple didn't bless with this, how will the > machine even know what to do when powered on with a blank new drive, waiting > to be reinstalled? I'm surprised EFI only exists on mac's. I think it's > needed for Linux sometimes because I hear of a USB Dongle version called EFI > X when I searched for EFI settings or something like that, but not sure what > this thing is good for. > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Nicolai Svendsen > To: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com > Sent: Friday, March 05, 2010 3:02 PM > Subject: Re: Open Firmware > > Hi, > > Intel Macs do not have Open Firmware. That was a mistake on my part. EFI > doesn't seem to have an interface, though I suppose that the Boot Manager is > the only exception capable of directly accessing the EFI. The only thing EFI > does have is Legacy BIOS support so that operating systems requiring a BIOS > to load such as Microsoft Windows are capable of doing so. Hopefully, Apple > will create a direct way of accessing the Extensible Firmware Interface at > some point, but it doesn't look like it is possible right now. I'm sure it > provides the same features and even more than the Open Firmware for the > Power-based Macs, so that's very exciting if it can be directly accessed > someday. > > Regards, > Nic > Skype: Kvalme > MSN Messenger: nico...@home3.gvdnet.dk > AIM: cincinster > yahoo Messenger: cin368 > Facebook Profile > My Twitter > > On Mar 5, 2010, at 9:48 PM, Brent Harding wrote: > >> Do new macs even have this any more? I would think the EFI must have similar >> settings to play with somewhere, but not sure where they are. >> >> ----- Original Message ----- >> From: Nicolai Svendsen >> To: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com >> Sent: Friday, March 05, 2010 8:45 AM >> Subject: Open Firmware >> >> Hi guys, >> >> You can get access to Open Firmware by holding Command-Option-O-F down as >> soon as you power on your Macintosh. Here, you can get information about >> installed RAM, your device tree and so-forth. You can also simulate an >> arbitrary size of RAM less than the total installed RAM in your actual >> machine. You can also disable RAM sticks in your computer, though other RAM >> sticks will run as before except those that are disabled. >> >> Here is my question. >> >> While you can run a telnet service within Open Firmware, I am guessing >> there is no accessibility at this point. Is the only way to actually Telnet >> through to your Mac via another computer so you can receive the text? I'm >> guessing that's the solution. >> >> Regards, >> Nic >> Skype: Kvalme >> MSN Messenger: nico...@home3.gvdnet.dk >> AIM: cincinster >> yahoo Messenger: cin368 >> Facebook Profile >> My Twitter >> >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "MacVisionaries" group. >> To post to this group, send email to macvisionar...@googlegroups.com. >> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >> macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. >> For more options, visit this group at >> http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en. >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "MacVisionaries" group. >> To post to this group, send email to macvisionar...@googlegroups.com. >> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >> macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. >> For more options, visit this group at >> http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en. > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "MacVisionaries" group. > To post to this group, send email to macvisionar...@googlegroups.com. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "MacVisionaries" group. > To post to this group, send email to macvisionar...@googlegroups.com. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionar...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en.
