I’ve heard drivers described as “the translation layer between software and hardware”
If that’s the case, then wtf does firmware do?
In: Technology
Your computer has three main software layers:
* The firmware that runs the low-level hardware
* The operating system
* The applications you run
Drivers do translate between software and hardware, but they can be in the operating system or the firmware. Just the fact that you can boot into your firmware to change settings means it has video, USB, and keyboard drivers in it. But they can be more than that. For example, the Apple Mac firmware lets you restore your OS from an external disk or network, so it has disk and network drivers in it too.
But for example the firmware video driver will be very primitive, no acceleration, just enough to display what it needs. The video driver in your operating system is much more complicated and gives you acceleration for the OS and applications.
Now these lines are quite blurred when it comes to phones.
Latest Answers