| 3 Jan 2024 |
 crushing-smite | was it always called firmware? | 10:13:55 |
 K900 | It used to be called BIOS | 10:14:07 |
| crushing-smite | :( | 10:14:14 |
| K900 | As in Basic Input/Output System | 10:14:36 |
| K900 | It's a specific thing that used to exist | 10:14:40 |
| K900 | On like old PC/ATs | 10:14:57 |
| K900 | And it was just something IBM built for the PC/AT and they called it that | 10:15:11 |
| crushing-smite | EFI = firmware, UEFI = bootloader? | 10:15:26 |
| K900 | And then people started making IBM PC clones and those also had to clone the IBM BIOS | 10:15:28 |
| K900 | So any IBM PC compatible computer would have a BIOS | 10:15:58 |
| K900 | (not necessarily the same implementation as IBM, as no one but IBM had it, but same interface) | 10:16:09 |
| K900 | And eventually UEFI came along and now most firmware actually implements UEFI, not BIOS | 10:17:06 |
| K900 | Though most consumer desktop boards also have a compatibility mode that provides BIOS-compatible interfaces on top of the UEFI firmware | 10:17:42 |
| K900 | In reply to@crushing-smite:matrix.org
EFI = firmware, UEFI = bootloader? There isn't really a distinction | 10:17:50 |
| K900 | EFI is what the spec used to be called when it was only an Intel thing | 10:17:56 |
| K900 | Eventually it got spun off into the UEFI Forum | 10:18:24 |
| K900 | And they added a "U" to differentiate | 10:18:32 |
| K900 | (EFI stands for Extensible Firmware Interface, U stands for Universal) | 10:18:48 |
| crushing-smite | Is it possible to feed an existing "real" parititon to the VM? | 10:24:50 |
 @atemu12:matrix.org | Sure | 10:24:57 |
| @atemu12:matrix.org | You can even pass an entire drive | 10:25:04 |
| K900 | Yes, but Windows generally tends to get VERY CONFUSED when you replace hardware under it | 10:25:09 |
| crushing-smite | Since I've dual-booted windows and nixos, could I pass the existing windows as virtualized on nixos? | 10:25:16 |
| K900 | So if you're thinking of virtualizing your existing Windows install, probably don't | 10:25:22 |
| @atemu12:matrix.org | IME it can handle it just fine | 10:25:27 |
| @atemu12:matrix.org | :( :) | 10:25:45 |
| crushing-smite | should I just go for it? | 10:25:48 |
| K900 | IME it can handle it just fine, but it can also break something ten layers in and you only find out two months later when you give up, reinstall and suddenly everything stops crashing | 10:25:54 |
| crushing-smite | confused - will it break everything and make windows unbootable, or will it just at worst not work when virtualized with nixos host? | 10:26:10 |
| @atemu12:matrix.org | That could also just be usual Windows shenanigans | 10:26:19 |
