The Basic Input/Output System (BIOS) on an x86 PC is the firmware that performs the power-on self-test (POST) and initializes hardware.
Questions tagged [bios]
392 questions
64
votes
4 answers
Is there a way to get the BIOS version from inside Linux?
I want to get the BIOS version from Linux without going directly to the BIOS.
I mean, is there a way to get the BIOS version from inside Linux?
pro neon
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39
votes
8 answers
Why is USB not working in Linux when it works in UEFI/BIOS?
For background I have just built a new machine with modern hardware including:
AMD FX-8350
Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 motherboard
16GB RAM
NVidia GTX 650 Ti
Kingston SSD
Given that, I tried to install various versions of Linux on the SSD and was met…
BrionS
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votes
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How to create a bootable Debian USB drive using Windows
I am running Windows 10 and am starting to learn how to boot from USB devices.
I have a 16GB USB (USB 3.0) drive and I want to do the following:
Make the 16GB USB drive run Debian Linux.
Keep Windows 10 on my C: drive.
Not partition my hard drive…
R C
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votes
7 answers
How to dump BIOS data to a file
I want to dump the BIOS data of my laptop to a file. The only solution I found is the following command:
dd if=/dev/mem bs=X skip=Y count=1
X and Y are different in suggested solutions by different people because there are different BIOS types.
Is…
Omid
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votes
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How does the grub efi loader find the correct grub.cfg and boot directory?
As I understand it, the uefi bios loads grub.efi from the efi partition. This now loads a bunch of grub modules and the configuration file from the /boot directory.
But how does grub find the correct device in which the boot partition resides? In…
user128063
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votes
3 answers
Is /dev/nvram dangerous to write to?
I found information that nvram is used for BIOS flashing/backup and that it contains some bios related data. Would cat /dev/random > /dev/nvram permanently brick computer? I'm quite tempted to type this command but somehow I feel it's not gonna end…
Lapsio
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18
votes
5 answers
Laptop boots directly to Ubuntu, can't access BIOS or Boot menu anymore
I'm running Laptop with single OS: UbuntuMATE 15.04 Beta1 64bit on Toshiba laptop Core i3. After burning "Elementary OS" on a live USB drive using UNetbootin, what happened is:
-After reboot, laptop directly shows UbuntuMATE boot screen, doesn't…
Kamal Rais Al-Shishani
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16
votes
10 answers
How to flash firmware under Linux in practice?
Well, I am feeling too old for jumping through several burning hoops to upgrade several firmwares via the usual vendor-specific way: Download some DOS tools, waste some time creating a (Free-)DOS boot medium and wasting more time to make the BIOS…
maxschlepzig
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11
votes
1 answer
Unable to shutdown Windows after installing GRUB
I've a Asus ROG laptop that came with Windows 8.1 preinstalled, I upgraded it to Windows 10 and then I wanted to install Bunsenlabs Linux as dual boot. The laptop was UEFI locked and it took me some time to figure out how to get it to boot from a…
Steffen B
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How much speed difference for a tweaked bios versus uefi boot?
EFI can be faster, but that's not certain. The biggest speed
difference is in hardware initialization early in the process. On my
systems, this is a fraction of the total boot time, so a reduction in
the hardware initialization time, while…
Pro Backup
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9
votes
4 answers
kworker thread kacpid_notify/kacpid hogging 60-70% of CPU
I'm running Linux Mint, version 19 Tara.
My battery life is really bad right now and my fan is always on because my computer is constantly at 70% CPU usage on this kworker thread. It's really starting to annoy me. I run top as soon as I boot up and…
Tica Sloth
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votes
6 answers
Unmount /boot after booting
For some highly secure bastion VMs I'll implement soon, I am considering to unmount /boot after booting - among other measures of course. Will be mounted only for updating kernel.
Testing this, no problems seem to appear; can it have any side…
Krackout
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8
votes
2 answers
booting qemu/kvm directly from a file system
Having used Xen and its pygrub for a while, I'm now trying to do something similar with KVM/qemu.
Basically, I have a LVM logical volume (though that could as well be a file) that contains the root filesystem of a Linux distribution (no…
Stéphane Chazelas
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votes
1 answer
Does Linux still have to reside within the first XX cylinders of a HDD?
It's been a while since I last bothered with partitioning my hard drive, but now it's time again and I remember last time I did this there was a requirement to put the root partition (or only GRUB?) not behind a certain cylinder number. Is this…
Tobias Kienzler
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7
votes
2 answers
Booting from install disk, no USB keyboard
I'm trying to install Arch Linux on a new system with a Gigabyte GA-Z87N-WIFI board. Although I can use the USB keyboard (and mouse) in the BIOS, the keyboard doesn't seem to work at all once I boot off the boot DVD.
There are several people who've…
rainbowgoblin
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