6 ms·
Personal computing is completely dead except for enthusiasts. We've completed our regression to the late 70s.
by swiley 5y ago
Personal computing is completely dead except for enthusiasts. We've completed our regression to the late 70s.
- nijave 5y agoWhat does this even mean? Secure boot has little impact on anything except reducing the complexity of Windows (since it doesn't need as many boot configurations)
- zozbot234 5y agoReducing the complexity how? Their Legacy boot code is already written, and legacy BIOSes aren't going to change either. That code basically comes for free to MS.
- nijave 5y agoMaintaining old code has a cost. Any changes Microsoft wants to make need to be compatible with the old code unless they remove it Things like tests/validation on new hardware is also costly. Microsoft (used to?) have an absolutely massive fleet of physical hardware to test Windows on
- swiley 5y agoI guess if the firmware allows users to install their own CA it's ok. I wouldn't be surprised if that feature was neglected by the OEMs or intentionally removed with windows 12.
- zozbot234 5y agoTo their credit, Microsoft has signed a secure boot "shim" that allows the user to do that, with explicit prompting. It's being used in the boot flow of many Linux distributions.
- userbinator 5y agoIn other words, it was Microsoft who effectively "gave permission" for Linux to run. One OS company has control over whether they allow competitor's OSs, on hardware that the company doesn't even produce. That should be an absolutely horrifying thing to anyone who believes in software freedom.
- foobar33333 5y agoYou can disable secure boot and add your own keys in the firmware config page. Who knows how long that will last though.
- cesarb 5y ago> You can disable secure boot and add your own keys in the firmware config page. You can disable secure boot or add your own keys because Microsoft required all manufacturers to allow it. If it wasn't mandated by Microsoft, some manufacturers would not allow it. And for ARM devices, Microsoft required the opposite (https://softwarefreedom.org/blog/2012/jan/12/microsoft-confirms-UEFI-fears-locks-down-ARM/ https://softwarefreedom.org/blog/2012/jan/12/microsoft-confi...). So yes, the only reason we can run non-Microsoft operating systems on our computers is because Microsoft "gave permission".
- wildrhythms 5y agoI understand the risk and want to forego secure boot. What's wrong with that?
- philistine 5y agoI'm on the Mac side, and I wanted to reinstall macOS. I messed up the hard drive wipe and ended up breaking the chain of trust. That meant Apple could no longer guarantee the correctness of my install, and no longer allowed my laptop to decrypt my data to reach the login screen directly. I had to input the password for my login at an earlier step during boot, which comes with a litany of small caveats. I'm sure Microsoft hopes to achieve something similar here at some point: secure boot would give them enough trust to decrypt an install upon boot all the way to the login screen.
- zozbot234 5y agoAt least you could recover by simply typing a login password. A similar screwup on a Windows box might require you to resort to BitLocker recovery keys, which add a fair bit of complexity and some users might not have these at all.
- Datagenerator 5y agoNothing wrong with freedom. Not running the master of all telemetry OS increases the possibility to read and study what you want without feeding the data hungry sensors Microsoft has set in stone for you. These datasets are brought to market with your consent (see the thousands of EULA pages you accepted directly and indirectly).
- swiley 5y agoAlso, turning off secure boot doesn't change the boot process on Microsoft's side, they have to ask the firmware after booting if it was disabled. Sorry for replying twice but I'm almost always stuck on noprocrast so I can't usually edit my comments.
- selfhoster11 5y agoIt makes Linux more complicated to deploy, for one. And if they ever change their mind and don't allow it on x86 any more, Linux is basically exiled from the PC OEM market.
- easton 5y agoIt shouldn't, as Microsoft made sure that the major distros (Ubuntu, RHEL, Fedora, CentOS, maybe Debian?) have access to a signing key that is trusted by the major OEMs. And you can trust your own keys, per the Microsoft guidelines that require that x86 machines allow their secure boot to be disabled. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/bringup/uefi-requirements-that-apply-to-all-windows-platforms#security-requirements https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/br...
- dataflow 5y ago> per the Microsoft guidelines that require that x86 machines allow their secure boot to be disabled. Yeah but then you can't boot into Windows? Who is actually going to go into the firmware settings to switch settings on and off for every single boot to the other OS?
- blibble 5y agoyou can boot debian/redhat/... out of the box without disabling it, as the shim used as part of the boot process has been signed by MS if you want to sign your own kernels: the shim will also let you do that relatively easily ("machine owner keys") if you want to own your entire boot process you can replace the platform key and sub-keys with your own, and then trust whoever you want (even adding MS' keys if you wish, so Windows can boot in secure mode)
- kelnos 5y agoI'm pretty sure we don't want to be in a world where we can only use one of a few Microsoft-approved Linux distros without it being a pain the the ass to deal with.
- bserge 5y agoSorry, but 7 was way more stable than 8-10 and it didn't even support SecureBoot.
- dlp211 5y agoAs much as you want this to be true, it simply isn't.
- formerly_proven 5y agoAny "Windows x was more stable than Windows y" (including the legally mandated "No, it wasn't" replies) is mostly rooted in what drivers the person used and if the hardware had issues, and has less to do with Windows.
- pjmlp 5y agoWhat do you expect when people buy Apple laptops to do GNU/Linux work instead of improving the ecosystem of Linux OEMs? Or are now rushing to give money to Microsoft and use WSL? Well, that is how things eventually turn out to be.
- jk7tarYZAQNpTQa 5y ago> Personal computing is completely dead except for enthusiasts So you're saying only enthusiasts have smartphones?