Development and testing of Arca Noae’s support for UEFI continues. Here’s a brief recap of how this will work in ArcaOS 5.1:
When the installation media boots, if the system is determined to be in “UEFI mode” as opposed to “Legacy mode” (“Legacy” here refers to the configuration which presents a traditional PC BIOS), ArcaOS will begin the preboot process using its compatibility system. Essentially, this is a 64-bit environment which will provide a rather complete BIOS emulation for the ArcaOS kernel, including VGA services for video display.
I often wonder just how hard it must be for the ArcaOS developers to work within the confines of OS/2 and what must be stringent licensing agreements and NDAs with IBM. This kind of low-level programming on OS/2 can’t be easy.
> This kind of low-level programming on OS/2 can’t be easy.
It’s not clear to me that any of this is OS/2 specific. The system boots UEFI, and they’re building a PE UEFI module that acts as a CSM in order to get BIOS code to run. The way they say it doesn’t change the OS/2 kernel and improves Win-OS/2 and DOS video compatibility kind of suggests that it’s providing services that any other system could consume.
(Not denying that low level programming on OS/2 wouldn’t be easy, just that I don’t think that’s what they’re doing here.)
Low level programming but I agree not OS/2 specific. I imagine this would work for any OS that needs to rely on the BIOS to boot.
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This is a quote from the article: “Once control is handed off to the ArcaOS kernel, the OS itself is exactly the same as a traditional ArcaOS boot. That is to say, the kernel is identical.” The OS/2 kernel itself has not been modified. They have not had to work around any IBM code although I guess you could say that the whole approach is a work-around.