
Test your BIOS and share your results on GitHub - Julio-Guerra
https://github.com/farjump/fwtr
======
josteink
Looks like a good initiative.

Would probably get more feedback if there was some simple scripts included
which conducted and prepared a folder with all the logs for you.

Right now it looks like quite a bit of manual work, which could easily be cut
down by providing a simple shell script. It doesn't even have to get you all
the way (clone repo, get correct vendor+board, etc), but at least provide you
with all the logfiles, consistently named. The readme could then guide you to
what blanks you need to fill in yourself in the end.

Hopefully the currently half-baked state of this otherwise good initiative
doesn't cause too many people who could have contributed to bail out.

~~~
Julio-Guerra
Done. I released a tool helping to contribute. It tries to store the results
according to the BIOS Information Table in the logs.

The new storage rule tries to be "deterministic".

------
rogeryu
So you want us to share our results? Then make it easy. Make a step by step
guide. Include commands or scripts that we can execute. Show us what to upload
where.

Take a common case scenario like with Ubuntu 14.04. Make screenshots of every
step or copy every command you use in the terminal. Then you might get
response.

------
snvzz
Seems like a good idea, but the implementation is poor.

Please just write a tool that does the set of tests, displays results and
optionally submits them.

Then distributions could package it, and people could run it.

The way it needs to be done right now implies too much effort and few people
are going to bother.

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onli
That's a nice idea. Vaguely remember seeing something like this before, but
since I don't know where that's not a problem. Might've been an Ubuntu
initiative from a few years ago and was not necessarily only the firmware.

The introduction is missing that coreboot
([https://www.coreboot.org/](https://www.coreboot.org/)) exists.

Suggestion: Make it easier to contribute. I have no idea how to get fwts to
give me the files shown for the example. Why not add a script that calls fwts
the right way and formats the output as needed, and maybe uploads the result
to somewhere?

~~~
kawsper
Libreboot ([https://libreboot.org/](https://libreboot.org/)) is also
interesting. The difference between them is that libreboot is a distribution
of coreboot without any proprietary binary blobs, and an easier install path.

~~~
PeCaN
And that libreboot has no hardware support.

------
noja
Here is an easier to use bootable live image:
[https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FirmwareTestSuite/FirmwareTestSuiteL...](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FirmwareTestSuite/FirmwareTestSuiteLive)

------
yuhong
There is also
[https://lkml.org/lkml/2014/9/13/103](https://lkml.org/lkml/2014/9/13/103)

------
Julio-Guerra
I updated the README to include your comments. Thanks for the feedback.

------
zsmith928
such an interesting thread, thanks for bringing this up!

At Packet, we've been working to support CoreOS and their Distributed Trusted
Computing ([https://tectonic.com/trusted-
computing/](https://tectonic.com/trusted-computing/)) for our on-demand bare
metal product. This relies on UEFI vs traditional BIOS. Reading up on this
I've certainly learned a ton! A good background article I read was
[https://www.happyassassin.net/2014/01/25/uefi-boot-how-
does-...](https://www.happyassassin.net/2014/01/25/uefi-boot-how-does-that-
actually-work-then/)

~~~
josteink
For anyone who actually would like to know how modern machine boots, in a way
which is practical and not just theoretical, this article is probably the best
there is.

Definitely recommended for someone coming from the legacy BIOS boot
background, expecting UEFI to be the same. (Hint: It isn't)

Basically while legacy booting has too many black boxes and black magic (from
an end-user perspective) to be practical to work with, UEFI is actually
inspectable and debuggable. If something fails, you can figure out why.

Best of all: Creating live USBs/CDs/whatever no longer requires special tools.
Just copy the everything, including the EFI folder, and its automatically
bootable.

UEFI is awesome.

