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Re: Intel Core2Duo (T7400)



On Wed, Nov 07, 2007 at 02:34:20PM +0100, Jonas Meurer wrote:
> Can you point me to some documentation which explains EFI64? I searched
> for it with google, but the only real information I got, was that for
> booting a EFI64 kernel, the bootloader needs to support it.
> 
> What is an EFI64 kernel? Is EFI64 a CPU flag?

EFI is intels replacement for the legacy BIOS.  intel Macs use EFI for
example.  Since it isn't a BIOS it uses a different partition table
format (GPT = GUID Partition Table) instead of the old DOS partition
table.  GPT supports partitions larger than 2^32 sectors, which the DOS
format does not so we will have to switch within a few years on new
machines given disks are approaching the multi TB size.

EFI also has a different interface and boot method, so a boot loader
would have to know how EFI works to boot at all on such a machine.
Supposedly vista will get EFI support in SP1, at which point it should
technically be possible to boot and install directly on an intel Mac
(and other EFI intel systems) without any bootcamp or other trickiness
involved.

--
Len Sorensen



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