Demystifying UEFI, the Overdue BIOS Replacement - Slashdot

Demystifying UEFI, the Overdue BIOS Replacement - Slashdot

"After more than 30 years of unerring and yet surprising supremacy, BIOS is taking its final bows. Taking its place is UEFI, a specification that begun its life as the Intel Boot Initiative way back in 1998 when BIOS's antiquated limitations were hampering systems built with Intel's Itanium processors. UEFI, as the article explains, is a complete re-imagining of a computer boot environment, and as such it has almost no similarities to the PC BIOS that it replaces."

How Microsoft Can Lock Linux Off Windows 8 PCs - Slashdot

How Microsoft Can Lock Linux Off Windows 8 PCs - Slashdot

Julie188 writes "Windows 8 PCs will use the next-generation booting specification known as Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI). In fact, Windows 8 logo devices will be required to use the secure boot portion of the new spec. Secure UEFI is intended to thwart rootkit infections by using PKI authentication before allowing executables or drivers to be loaded onto the device. Problem is, unless the device manufacturer gives a key to the device owner, it can also be used to keep the PC's owner from wiping out the current OS and installing another option, such as Linux."

Coding Horror: Building a PC, Part VII: Rebooting

Coding Horror: Building a PC, Part VII: Rebooting

I've had more or less the same PC, with various updates, since 2007. I've written about most of it here:

• Building a PC, Part I: Minimal boot
• Building a PC, Part II: Burn in
• Building a PC, Part III: Overclocking
• Building a PC, Part IV: Now It's Your Turn
• Building a PC, Part V: Upgrading
• Building a PC, Part VI: Rebuilding

While the advice in those original articles is still quite sound, my old 2007 era case was feeling mighty creaky. I needed a new chassis. I also wanted a motherboard that supported native 6 Gbps SATA for the latest generation of SSDs that truly benefit from them. The buzz around the Sandy Bridge based Core i7-2600k was nearly deafening, and I've fallen completely in love with my last HTPC build based on the same technology. (Oh, and even if you already read that article, read it again because I added new PicoPSU and case information that takes it from awesome to sublime – on the order of 17 watts idle!)
So I decided it was time to build myself a nice Sandy Bridge system. What I ended up with is easily the best case and motherboard combination I've ever laid hands on. Read on!