Page "BIOS" Paragraph 12

The role of the BIOS has changed over time.

As of 2011, the BIOS is being replaced by the more complex Extensible Firmware Interface ( EFI ) in many new machines, but BIOS remains in widespread use.

EFI booting has been supported in only Microsoft Windows versions supporting GPT, the Linux kernel 2. 6. 1 and later, and Mac OS X on Intel-based Macs.

However, the distinction between BIOS and EFI is rarely made in terminology by the average computer user, making BIOS a catch-all term for both systems.