15 ms·

Before you Dual Boot – MS, OEMs and Linux

149 points by dopkew 13y ago

voltagex_ 13y ago
I really don't understand all these people having issues booting in UEFI mode. Fine, disable Secure Boot (or boot Fedora/Ubuntu if you care about it), load a recent distro and get on with your work/play.
- CSDude 13y ago
  If you disable UEFI, you need to install your system again, and you cannot use your old license to install it, at least in Win8. So you either buy another Win8. So disabling UEFI is not an option, for dual boot.
  - higherpurpose 13y ago
    Holy cow, how are we just now finding out about this? So Microsoft is forcing you to buy yet another Windows license, after you already paid for the one included with the laptop, if you want to dual-boot? This should been a scandal when Windows 8 launched.
    - marcosdumay 13y ago
      It was, but the number of people spreading misinformation (like the top of this thread, or the article's author just a few days ago) was huge, and since nobody had firsthand experience with it, most people simply ignored. Any problem you have with your computer now, you are required to buy another Windows copy.
      - nkerkin 13y ago
        I'm confused, could you please elaborate on this? I successfully dual-booted a second-hand (wiped hdd, etc) Lenovo Carbon X1 w/ Ubuntu and Win8 from MSDN media. It picked up the pre-loaded Win8 license without issue.
    - tormeh 13y ago
      Not really. Installing Linux on a computer running UEFI is perfectly possible. It's just really hard. I'm typing this on just such a machine and it involved activating BIOS emulation and then when the Ubuntu purple loading disk screen came I needed to do a magic key-combo and set some options I don't remember. Then I needed to run bootrepair and instruct it to make Ubuntu UEFI bootable and finally I could turn off BIOS emulation. It's hard as fucking hell.
      - Wohui 13y ago
        The linux experience now extends before installation ;)
      - runejuhl 13y ago
        I installed Debian 7.4 on a Dell XPS 13 using a live hybrid ISO (`debian-live-7.4-amd64-standard+nonfree.iso`) two days ago. After enabling UEFI and adding the USB stick as a boot device, I had to do nothing out of the normal to get it to work. It was incredibly painless.
      - ac29 13y ago
        Anecdotal, but: I have linux installed on two machines with UEFI, and neither was much harder than a BIOS install. An extra step or two, but it didn't require more than a couple additional minutes. Sounds like the Ubuntu installer might just suck for UEFI.
      - zanny 13y ago
        My last two systems (desktops, I don't even have a working notebook right now, waiting for Broadwell) used Asrock and ASUS boards with EFI implementations that worked pretty well out of the box under Linux. One runs Suse 13.1, the other runs Arch. They both have their bugs - the Asrock system wipes the EFI boot table every firmware update, and the ASUS one can only have one entry in the EFI boot table, and neither has a working EFI shell - but I did my research to know they worked.
  - ntakasaki 13y ago
    The parent poster said, disable UEFI Secure Boot, not UEFI, in which case Windows will continue to boot normally.
  - thefreeman 13y ago
    Since when can you not use a windows license more then once.
    - pritambaral 13y ago
      The license key gets tied to certain system internals upon first use, and is checked against the existence and value of the same internals in subsequent checks. Apparently, toggling UEFI (and/or Secure Boot) modifies one such internal. EDIT: license -> license key
      - SEMW 13y ago
        Don't confuse the technology with the legalities. "The license" is a contractual right that you have legally purchased. If Microsoft's piracy-detecting hair-triggers are firing in a situation where you still have a license per the contact - oem licenses are usually "on this PC" or the like, so toggling UEFI alone shouldn't breach the terms - that should be their problem. You're entitled to your license.
      - justin66 13y ago
        And then you call Microsoft on the phone and they issue a reactivation, or whatever they call it, and everything is fine. Unless this works differently with OEM versions of Windows (different, more obtuse support people?) than it does with retail, I can't imagine it's actually a problem.
        pritambaral 13y ago
        Most people don't realize this.
  - noir_lord 13y ago
    > at least in Win8. So you either buy another Win8. So disabling UEFI is not an option, for dual boot. I don't use Windows however that would be the point where I'd just pirate it, if I buy a single user license for a piece of hardware I expect to be able to run it on that hardware. Fortunately my life and work (web dev) is better on Linux than Windows.
  - yuhong 13y ago
    I believe this is a myth. The product key is stored using ACPI, not UEFI. Even MS mentioned that you can switch to BIOS mode in order to install 32-bit Win8.
- oofabz 13y ago
  Same here, I boot Linux from UEFI on several computers and it works fine. It boots faster and uses native display resolution instead of VESA. I dual boot Win 8, chainloading from GRUB. I think there are just a lot of people who don't know how to install GRUB to the EFI partition, or don't know how to edit their EFI boot menu with efibootmgr. UEFI is more complex than BIOS booting and if the only mental model you have is of a boot sector, you will have trouble understanding why a misbehaving system is acting as it is. I don't enjoy needing to fix my boot loader when I install Linux or update Windows, but I'm always able to make it work. I always had boot loader issues when I dual-booted BIOS systems too, so although it's still unpleasant, it's not any worse. It's just different and requires learning some new concepts and command-line tools.
  - voltagex_ 13y ago
    From some of the replies below me, it looks like there are some horrible UEFI implementations. Your other option is to shove GRUB (or similar) on a FAT32 drive and boot from that when you want to boot Windows. FWIW, my key/activation is stored in firmware on my Lenovo X1 and I had no trouble when I disabled Secure Boot.
- wheaties 13y ago
  Let me explain this for you then, I have a Windows 8 Sony Vaio. If I disable Secure Boot and install Linux on a partition, the Bios doesn't work. Period. I've seen that a number of people got it to work for a while by modifying the grub loader and other hackery but then try updating Linux. Why? Buggy UEFI that is not "standards" compliant. If I try to use UEFI with a Linux distro that supports UEFI, I get a message saying something like "Can't find Windows."
  - oofabz 13y ago
    I also have a Sony Vaio and I got UEFI working. The trick is, it is hardcoded to load the bootloader from /EFI/Boot/bootx64.efi - it does not respect the EFI boot menu. Linux is installing its UEFI bootloader to someplace like /EFI/debian/grubx64.efi. Move that file to /EFI/Boot/bootx64.efi and it will boot GRUB. You can chainload the Windows bootloader from GRUB.
  - varkson 13y ago
    I had a tough time installing Ubuntu on my Vaio Pro 13, but got there in the end. I had to do a lot of messing around to get the shitty UEFI implementation to read Grub. Didn't have to disable SecureBoot or do anything much to Grub, besides a particular boot flat necessary for the SSD. It took about a day to get it up and running, but I've had no issues at all since.
  - brerlapn 13y ago
    I have a Sony Vaio for work, and was completely unable to get it to run Linux even with a live USB or CD. My research turned up the issue you've identified--their UEFI software doesn't work right.
CSDude 13y ago
Hear my fucked up story of UEFI, Secure Boot and Windows 8: I have a Windows 8 laptop. It had 2 HDDs, so I easily installed Ubuntu 13.04 to second HDD. However, during a Win8 update process, it hanged for hours and I force closed. Then even my recovery partition was corrupted. So, I wiped my first HDD, and since the OEMs don't give DVDs anymore, I could not install it. I live in Turkey, and there is a special version of Win8 Single Language, not found on internet. You cannot confirm checksum of them because it is not widely used, and depends on the region I think (maybe wrong). Therefore, even If I found a iso on Turkish forum I could not verify it, but tried to install Single Language version anyways. But It could not verify my key, that is burried in my motherboard. I tried to install Windows 8 Pro from MSDNAA, and it said it cannot because of the internal license on my pc. I tried dozens of way to disable it. When I got Windows 8.1 Pro from MSDNAA as well, It installed without problems. That is really f*cked up. I did not like flatness of even windows, I disabled Secure Boot, removed my partioning from GPT to MBR, installed my Ubuntu with Windows 7 as it is used to be, before these dark times. Now I'm a teaching assitant of operating systems course, students need to use Linux for assignments, and almost all of them uses VirtualBox, which is not a very good replacement for native experience. It is fast, but not fast enough.
- ntakasaki 13y ago
  What has this got to do with Secure Boot?
  - nosefrog 13y ago
    "But It could not verify my key, that is buried in my motherboard." Secure Boot systems verify your OS against a key stored on your hardware.
    - graycoder 13y ago
      I like the way you think.
    - ntakasaki 13y ago
      He's talking about Windows product key which has nothing to do with the secure boot key. You could have a properly activated Windows installation get stopped by Secure Boot because of failed boot kernel verification, or you could have Secure Boot verified boot failing Windows Activation.
higherpurpose 13y ago
There's another insane thing I've recently heard about - that Intel intends to lock the OS to their own (new) chips, and you can't dual-boot or install another OS. If they do this, yes I expect them to say that "the OEM has the choice" to allow for dual-booting or whatever, but I bet you 90 percent of PCs will be locked to Windows, when this arrives on Windows machines: https://plus.google.com/+GuidoStepken/posts/bD2VHB4LcEU https://plus.google.com/+GuidoStepken/posts/bD2VHB4LcEU
- marcosdumay 13y ago
  Well, once they do that, the same way that one should avoid Windows 8 if he wants to have a chance of running Linux, one will also be recommended to avoid an Intel processor if he wants control of his system. Except that Intel has less of a monopoly than Microsoft, so that's way easier.
  - jcastro 13y ago
    This would be worse on laptops. It's braindead easy to just snag an Intel-based laptop and know everything will work out of the box. (Other than the Poulsbo netbooks generally speaking they've done a great job supporting Linux on their hardware). With AMD laptops you might end up with a Broadcom wireless card and an AMD GPU.
- varkson 13y ago
  There's no proof of this, just a Google+ translation of some news article.
- userbinator 13y ago
  I like how they use antivirus/antimalware software as an example, because it's what is almost universally considered "a good thing". The flip side of it is that this security software can also be used as a tool for mass censorship, and I certainly don't want something like that being impossible to remove and running in "ring -1".
codelap 13y ago
This isn't about UEFI, I've had no issues with it. Primarily because I don't use Windows on it. Microsoft is up to it's old tricks here. Then again, try to run OSX on a Dell. I just wish all these guys would get their heads out of there asses.
- pritambaral 13y ago
  > try to run OSX on a Dell I don't get what you're trying to say here, so pardon me if this response is totally orthogonal to your point. OS X isn't supposed to be run on PC's (laptop+desktop). Nor is it expected. Desktop Linux, however, is.
  - rjbwork 13y ago
    Except that OSX does run on PC's. The architectures are identical now. My MacBook Pro can run windows natively because it is an x86/x64 architecture from the ground up.
    - pfraze 13y ago
      Yeah, it's called the Hackintosh
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    - pritambaral 13y ago
      I am aware of the architecture of Mac hardware. But OS X doesn't have driver (thus hardware) support for all (or even a large range of) hardware that conform to the architecture. Apple develops (espcially when it comes to optimizations) OS X expressly for it's own selection of (as opposed to general purpose) hardware. Apple also goes so far as to actively try to prevent OS X running on non-Mac hardware[0]. Contrast this with Linux, *BSDs that are developed on and for a wide range of (and general purpose) hardware. [0]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple%E2%80%93Intel_architecture#Dont_Steal_Mac_OS_X.kext http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple%E2%80%93Intel_architectur...
pyre 13y ago
I don't get how UEFI is still "getting the kinks worked out." Hasn't Apple been using it since they converted to Intel? How many years ago was that? How long does it take to "get the kinks worked out?" Or is this more of an issue between Windows / Linux implementations of UEFI support?
- rapala 13y ago
  It's the classical problem of a standard that nobody actually follows. Every UEFI firmware that I have come across has behaved differently. My current laptop has an UEFI implementation that only boots from a hardcoded path in the EFI partition. You guessed right, the path of the windows 8 bootloader. The UEFI in my home server overwrites the UEFI boot manager list every time you save & exit the configuration tool. If I remember correctly, the UEFI implementation of a MBP that my friend and I tried to make dual boot Ubuntu required a blessed HFS boot partition for every OS.
  - yuhong 13y ago
    My Acer require setting a BIOS password before modifying secure boot settings. Fortunately I can set it back to blank after modifying them.
  - zanny 13y ago
    I'm really biased against Intel processors now because of this - I endure my distaste for how horribly documented and black box their parts are, but the fact their firmware for going on 6 generations has no documentation to enable coreboot on these boards drives me to AMD. Yea, they don't open up all their stuff, but if you dig around you can usually find a board on most chipsets that works with coreboot. That gets my purchase. Plus they are doing good work with the radeonSI mesa driver, even if they still pack binary power firmware with it (I've read a few articles decompiling and inspecting it to know it is mostly just init command code to start the hardware).
- AnthonyMouse 13y ago
  Apple makes both the OS and the UEFI implementation for their hardware. If the UEFI implementation caused any trouble for OS X, they could fix it before shipping the hardware. They also use a non-standard EFI implementation (IIRC the EFI partitions are HFS+ rather than FAT; whoever thought it was a good idea for EFI to read the partition table whatsoever should be fired). The issue with PC hardware is, as it ever was, hardware vendors not following the standard. Much like Apple and OS X, they build some implementation and only fix bugs if they break Windows. So if you want to build a Linux implementation, you have to implement workarounds for all the quirks in different vendors' EFI implementations, and in the meantime you can't install on their hardware.
keithpeter 13y ago
I currently use a couple of recycled core duo 2 thinkpads. BIOS so of course GNU/Linux installs easy either whole disk or dual boot with windows. In the future, I suppose I'll need to look to a Chromebook as a cheap platform for my GNU/Linux. Unless people actually start making open hardware...
- grannyg00se 13y ago
  No need to fear. I have a recent Thinkpad (T530) and it boots ArchLinux painlessly from USB or internal 32gig ssd. Also boots into windows8 from the main 120gig ssd if necessary. It's UEFI with secureboot disabled.
  - lsiebert 13y ago
    Yeah I did something similar on my T530. Booting into Windows is a pain, compared to Mint. Everything wants to update and reboot.
userbinator 13y ago
I'm now happier than ever that I bought one of the last pure-BIOS motherboards of the i7 era, and a laptop (Thinkpad X60) that can run completely free software (https://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/endorsement/gluglug https://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/endorsement/gluglug , although I didn't know that when I bought it several years ago ), and I plan on holding on to these machines and making the most of them for as long as I can, because the future of the PC is looking more and more closed with each new change. It was only a few decades ago when IBM released the PC AT, complete with a full set of documentation, even the full source code of the BIOS. Now you're lucky if you can even get a datasheet for the SuperI/O chip or processor VRM controller. I've observed this decrease in openness through the years, but it's only most recently (post-Nehalem?) I've noticed this happening at an accelerated pace. Throughout this time, all the changes that have been made for "security" appear to me as more and more like attempts to secure systems against their users, taking control away from them and forcing them to trust some authority instead. Code signing, secure boot, TPM, patch protection, etc. It is becoming more difficult to stay in control of the hardware you bought. It is true that several years ago, it was probably much easier to infect systems with malware, but at the same time, the users had more freedom; including the freedom to explore, use, and modify the OSes of their choosing. Is this freedom something we should really be sacrificing? The well-known quote comes to mind: "Those who give up freedom for security deserve neither."
- pwg 13y ago
  > Throughout this time, all the changes that have been made for "security" appear to me as more and more like attempts to secure systems against their users, "The right to Read": http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html RMS was right all along. "The Coming War on General Purpose Computing" http://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html http://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html, Cory Doctorow, 17 years from now most will realize that Cory was also just as right as RMS was 17 years ago.
- derefr 13y ago
  I think it all comes down to the death of what was, in the 90s, called the "power user." There have always been two kinds of computer users: Administrators--those who can be trusted to administer their own systems; and Users--those who cannot, who need someone else to Administer their system for them. The Power User emerged as a gross hybrid because of the limitations of Personal Computer OSes. In Windows 98, for example, everyone was implicitly considered an Administrator, even if they had no idea how to Administer anything. (They were Users with the full Power of an Administrator.) What would frequently happen is that one person in an extended family would have such knowledge as to be capable of actually Administering computers, and would frequently have to drop in to perform Administrative maintenance for relatives, who had no idea they had to do such things themselves. Nobody would be looking out for the computer in the interstice. This era is thankfully over. What do we have now? No greater number of people capable of Administering their own computers, certainly. Instead, what happens now is that the hardware manufacturer provides hooks (the Secure Boot certificate store et al.) such that the computer's Owner can delegate Administrative power to the OS distributor (Microsoft, Apple, Canonical, etc.), leaving the Owner as a plain User. "That guy in the family who knows computers" no longer has to be involved--effectively, the OS distributor is "that guy." This is only really a problem for people who want to Administer their own computers (though in any form-factor where you can buy a motherboard separately, all these protections can be disabled.) Frankly, though, I see less and less of a need for people to Administer personal computers. PCs (I'm including both desktops and mobiles in this set), these days, are basically the equivalent of VT-100 terminals: fancy screens you buy, take out of the box, and plug directly into the internet. This is what I would call the "modern tinkerer mindset": • "Real Software" runs on Impersonal Computers: servers, either racked in your office, or existing nebulously in "the cloud." When you are developing this software, you keep a VM that simulates such an Impersonal Computer running on your Personal Computer, and interact with it as if it were a network resource. • Development of new Operating Systems occurs using a hardware emulator (really a more precise VM), like qemu. It then moves to ordinary VM software. Everyone else who tries your hobbyist OS will only want to run it in a VM themselves. Getting it running on Real Hardware is a 1.0 feature. • If you want to fiddle with hardware yourself, you get a Raspberry Pi, or any of innumerable other devices aimed squarely at tinkerers. You could develop an OS using these, too, although it's a much greater hassle than just using emulation software. These devices are open in ways Personal Computers never were, having everything from schematics to JTAG pins available. Given that mindset, what do you gain by having Administration rights to your new-age VT-100 Personal Computer? You might answer "the surety that Microsoft/Apple/etc. will never ban VM software from its platform", but no OS distributor would dream of doing this: after all, how, then, would its first- and third-party developers do their jobs? They rely on VM software just like the rest of us.
r0h1n 13y ago
This seems to be an explanation of how to install Ubuntu on an Acer laptop with Windows 8 - http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2176273&s=3a5c2ecb6245df86e17a7e1536084324&p=12800489#post12800489 http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2176273&s=3a5c2ecb6... I can't believe how convoluted and snafu-prone the process appears to be. I bought my Aspire V7 laptop in December and have never gotten around to installing Ubuntu on it simply because I dread the almost-guaranteed loss of 1-2 working days trying to undo whatever screwups happen. I can't imagine even one lay, non-Linux lover even thinking of attempting something like this.
mahouse 13y ago
So, I have a Lenovo laptop, running dual boot (formerly Gentoo, now Ubuntu) with Windows on UEFI using rEFInd. Zero problems so far. Am I lucky or what?!
- fhars 13y ago
  You are at least lucky that you didn't run into this issue https://plus.google.com/+MarcMERLIN/posts/4RDPCGYCDWq https://plus.google.com/+MarcMERLIN/posts/4RDPCGYCDWq where booting linux on certain UEFI enabled Thinkpads would reproducibly brick the machine.
  - cannam 13y ago
    I have that machine, and I run Linux on it. His post was quite valuable, and that was obviously a bit of a horror on Lenovo's part, but it looks as if a subsequent BIOS update fixed it -- or at least I got a newer version of the BIOS than he refers to and I didn't get bricked. The machine has a terrible single-button trackpad arrangement, but is otherwise fabulously good as a Linux development box. (I do also run Windows, in a VM rather than dual-booting)
- vetinari 13y ago
  You don't need rEFInd with Lenovo. The built in EFI boot manager is good enough.
kclay 13y ago
I ran into this problem with an Acer laptop, somehow I got it working by disabling something in the bios (think legacy mode) then installed ubuntu from live cd and made that my boot loader. Ended up returning the laptop since I didn't like win8 and got a thinkpad T530 and mostly use ubuntu on it.
zokier 13y ago
I guess you get what you pay for; http://i.imgur.com/wZcxCGZ.jpg http://i.imgur.com/wZcxCGZ.jpg
- junto 13y ago
  Or more appropriately, you get what you don't pay for! :-)
marincounty 13y ago
I have come to the decision just not to buy anything HP. I had two horrid experiences with two HP laptops, and two printers that went too soon--1 less than a year--the other less than a week. Off subject, but when ever I hear HP I cringe.
- buro9 13y ago
  The key there is to only buy expensive HP stuff. Their office laser printers are great, and their workstations (e.g. the Z820) are pretty awesome. Their cheap stuff on the other hand... I agree with you on every point.
ganeumann 13y ago
The article claims: "One reason all PC's that come preinstalled with a Microsoft operating system is cheaper than regular laptop is that Microsoft subsidizes the cost of the hardware." I had always thought that PC makers paid Microsoft for Windows. The article claims that, instead, Microsoft pays the PC makers to install Windows. I don't see how this could possibly be true if most copies of Windows are sold pre-installed on PCs.
- ams6110 13y ago
  I've never heard that Microsoft pays OEMs but they certainly do give them a discounted price. Also it is my understanding that they do have some contract terms that either forbid sale of the same hardware with other OSes preinstalled or forbid sale at a lower price with other OS or no OS. This is all from years ago, I don't know what terms are these days. Obviously Dell, HP, etc. do have a few preinstalled Linux systems in their catalogs now.
- ChuckMcM 13y ago
  I too don't think this is accurate. What Intel and Microsoft have done is contributed marketing support dollars which, from a pure business analysis point, might be considered part of the cost of the system but it isn't what you or I would consider subsidizing the hardware. In marketing support programs Microsoft pays for a television advertisement for your product (very expensive) which points out how great it is because uses Microsoft Windows. Similarly with the Intel inside advertisements.
- naner 13y ago
  Microsoft charges for OEM licenses. PC manufacturers, however, will include other software with Windows for a fee (e.g. Imagine Adobe pays Dell for Adobe Reader to be included on Dell consumer systems). It is also plausible that Microsoft has a patent agreement with PC manufacturers so that they have to pay Microsoft a fee to ship systems with Linux installed. I know we've seen similar situations with companies that run Linux servers or sell Android devices.
- Zigurd 13y ago
  What they probably meant is that Windows is a profit center for HP because of the 3rd party crapware/bloatware loaded with Windows. They don't have similar deals for Linux, and that would probably chase off their Linux customers.
patcheudor 13y ago
I learned my lesson long ago. Linux is for VMs. I run vanilla Windows as my boot OS and then use Linux from within a VM, thus getting the benefits of Windows hardware compatibility where I need it. This lets me do things like run nine monitors when my laptop is docked by chaining DisplayLink adapters. Note that Windows with DisplayLink will only support eight monitors so for the ninth I bind the DisplayLink adapter to the VM for dual monitors with my Linux VM. Going above more than two monitors with a Linux host OS is akin to beating one's head into a wall, especially if you move between monitor configurations often, but just works in Windows. Thus far, with the ability for the VM to bind specific hardware directly and not shared via the host OS I get all the benefits of a Linux host OS without the hassle of broken driver implementations taking me down for long stretches at a time. As an example, I can bind my ALFA WiFi adapter directly to the Linux VM and run aircrack-ng all day long. Yes, there are drawbacks. You will need a bigger hard-drive (best if you can fit two in your laptop) and more memory, but those are cheap these days. The benefits, however are massive. I keep multiple VM versions and can instantly recover from anything stupid that I might do in the Linux kernel without impacting my ability to actually get my work done.
- dm2 13y ago
  I do the same thing, it works well. Do you use Windows 7 or 8 as your parent OS? I use VirtualBox and have found it reliable for years. The Windows host OS can then be kept very clean and it remains fast and relatively secure. Then in those rare instances when you need to download something insecure or that you don't want cluttering your Windows install you can put it in a virtual machine that acts as a sandbox. If you organize your files right you can even wipe your windows partition and reinstall with very little downtime and setup (other than the several gigs of updates that will be needed during the first few boots).
  - patcheudor 13y ago
    I ran into some odd problems with the DisplayLink drivers after a couple years of success in Win 7 so I recently made the jump to Win 8.1. Most of my real work happens in my VM's so I don't mind it. My laptop has two 500 GB SSD's and has room for two more drives via mSATA cards. When I run out of room for VMs I'll go ahead and start populating the mSATA slots. I recently picked up a USB 3.0 256GB thumb drive and use it for VM portability between machines so I can leave my big laptop docked at work & take a lighter one on business trips. And yeah - you are right about very little downtime when reinstalling stuff. While my peers will be out for a week because of an OS or hardware failure I can be up and running again in no time at all.
plg 13y ago
Seems like a business opportunity: for companies to make their own linux friendly hardware ... or to modify existing laptops to be linux friendly.
HeyImAlex 13y ago
Girlfriends laptop is an HP pavilion g7 and no number of tutorials can get grub to load up on boot. She wants to boot to Ubuntu? Gotta remember to F12 into the bios and manually select it... But it seems like this is less of a UEFI issue and more of an HP shitty UEFI issue, since plenty of other manufacturers don't cause any problems.
bananas 13y ago
I never dual boot. It's a PITA with UEFI or not and has been since the dawn of time. It's Linux -or- Windows. UEFI is not a problem though - people need to stop badmouthing something they really don't understand. I settled on using Windows as a host OS[1] and use Linux on VMs because to be fair, Windows power management, suspend/resume and hibernate and driver support is miles better i.e. it actually works more than once. Oh and they really don't fuck up the kernel every 2 minutes like on Ubuntu and don't throw out buggy shit like Apple do. I used a 2011 MBP for the last 6 months or so however (with virtualbox) and I had to go back to an older and slower T400 as it was more reliable as well. So virtualbox on windows 7 it is. And it works really well. I'm pretty happy and I'm a picky as they come when it comes to hardware and software. On my desktop (a Dell T3500 with piles of RAM), it's 8.1 with Hyper-V with Linux in it as that works pretty damn well too. Is suspect the problem here is users rather than hardware and vendors. [1] On my Lenovo T400.
- TazeTSchnitzel 13y ago
  I also find dual boot painful. On my old machine I switched main OS several times (back and forth from Windows to Linux). I couldn't dual-boot because it just wouldn't be fun. There's no real way to share data properly between the two OSes, I wouldn't have the exact same set of available apps, etc. Now I have a MacBook with OS X. It combines the things I want from Windows and Linux, so I have no need to change OS. If I really need Linux or Windows for something, hardware virtualisation makes things easy.
  - andrewflnr 13y ago
    A FAT32 partition doesn't do it for you? That's where I have all my music.
    - flogic 13y ago
      That helps but invariably you want to use both OS's at the same time. It sucks to have to reboot every time you want to shift data about. Much easier to have both machines running at the same time. VM's also have tools for the guest to share clipboards.
joyofdata 13y ago
For me precisely this was the final reason I needed to simply erase Windows 8 64bit Professional (which I paid for half a year earlier) and install Ubuntu 13.10. I was worried about driver issues and spending too much time adminstering my system instead of using it for being productive. I cannot emphasize enough how unnecessary those worries were - I f love it! As an IT guy using R, Git, Python and further Linux tools this made actually a lot of tasks way easier! My recommendation - f* dual boot - get rid of Windows and switch to Linux!
- dopkew 13y ago
  If you mention what your system is, then it could help others in making buying decisions. This would then send a message to hardware vendors that linux support gives them visibility and appreciation.
  - zanny 13y ago
    https://www.system76.com/ https://www.system76.com/ https://www.thinkpenguin.com/ https://www.thinkpenguin.com/ https://www.dell.com/us/business/p/xps-13-linux/pd https://www.dell.com/us/business/p/xps-13-linux/pd And others. Really, if you are buying a new system for Linux, and it isn't a custom desktop, just buy a notebook from a Linux provider so you know modern kernels support the thing out of the box flawlessly.
derekp7 13y ago
Here's my rant on how Secure boot should be done. Currently, you have Microsoft's public key certificates in the firmware, and you can either boot with secure boot on or off. I would rather that the certificates be treated similar to a web browsers, where you have a list of "official" certs belonging to multiple independent entities. In addition, when in secure mode, you shouldn't be able to boot from unsigned media. Now here's where I think this can be improved. Usually, hitting something like F12 at boot time gives you a list of devices to boot from (internal drive, USB devices, DVD, network, etc). What I'd like to see added to this is an item labeled "Boot from unsigned DVD/USB/Network [for OS installation mode]". Once this is selected, whatever you boot would have access to adding additional certificates to the firmware. Or, more appropriately, you should be able to select 3 boot options: 1) boot from signed media; 2) boot from unsigned media; 3) boot from unsigned media with write access to certificate key store [OS installation mode]. That way, the end user can still maintain complete control over their hardware, yet still get the benefits of protection against boot sector malware / low level root kits.
- Locke1689 13y ago
  This sounds like secure boot's "Custom Mode." 'Certified for Win8' requires that all non-ARM machines support either Secure Boot Custom Mode or SB disabled. I would hope they would support custom, but that's the manufacturer's prerogative.
  - yc-kjh 13y ago
    Asus does not support disabling Restricted Boot for their model 1015E.
    - Locke1689 13y ago
      Cite?
- betterunix 13y ago
  I have a simpler solution: the bootloader is kept on a separate storage device, which can only be written to if the computer is booted up in a special mode. No signing needed, prevents common bootloader viruses, respects user freedom.
lunulata 13y ago
"My journey into hell began about two months ago when I purchased a new HP laptop computer..." That'll teach you. Next time don't buy HP. Those super cheap laptops come at the price of quality and decent support. You pay for it one way or another. As for the UEFI being bad or not working well with Linux, I disagree. I think you just don't know what you're doing and HP support is bad with no documentation.
zyztem 13y ago
Actually, it is not that difficult to dual boot Windows/Linux with UEFI. You just need more understanding about this whole thing. I can recommend Arch wiki article: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Unified_Extensible_Firmware_Interface https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Unified_Extensible_Firm... And http://www.rodsbooks.com/efi-bootloaders/ http://www.rodsbooks.com/efi-bootloaders/ Kernels 3.3+ can be loaded from EFI partition directly without additional bootloader, no need to wrestle with grub-efi. This blog explains required configuration: http://wolfwings.dreamwidth.org/224805.html http://wolfwings.dreamwidth.org/224805.html
- zanny 13y ago
  efibootmgr makes it really simple to set up. When I get a new computer with Arch, once I install the base system, my bootloader is literally just: efibootmgr -c -l /vmlinuz-linux -L "Archlinux" -u "initrd=/initramfs-linux.img root=<root partition uuid> ro quiet splash security=tomoyo" Assuming /boot is my efi system partition. The real problem is that most motherboard manufacturers have absolute garbage bloated proprietary messes of EFI implementations, and we are stuck with Intel jamming this shit down our throats in the first place rather than opening up their chipset documentation so we could have coreboot support on these boards.
- Adam503 13y ago
  We know all about Hacker News "not that dificult" I smell a simple 26 step process that can't legally be done in some parts of the Middle East and N. Korea, a few assembler and brainf*ck scripts, and a little simple arc-welding.
harrystone 13y ago
No problems here, I just don't dual boot. I recently got a new machine at work and the first thing I did was wipe it and install Slackware. It was my maiden voyage with UEFI which was a pain in the ass but no big deal.
sherr 13y ago
A lot of commentary here and in the article was worrying to me. Directly relevant since I bought a cheap (good value) Lenovo G510 laptop today that came with Win 8.1. I didn't want to use Windows at all, just boot Clonezilla straightaway, clone the HDD and then install Debian. No go on booting from CD - "not allowed" due to the security setup. Ah, OK .. so it then boots Win 8.1 and I had to go through various Windows setups I wanted to avoid before rebooting and trying again. It was then I had to figure out the BIOS side of things and saw it was all UEFI. I just turned it off and switched to "legacy" mode (BIOS legacy I assume) and disabled secure boot. Cloned the HDD, booted the Debian Testing CDROM and now have a "Jessie" install on it.
- voltagex_ 13y ago
  Lenovo laptops will boot the beta/new Clonezilla fine. Just disable Secure Boot. Debian will boot in about 5 seconds with UEFI and an SSD.
nitrogen 13y ago
I'm still using a BIOS-based i7 system with a successful and stable triple-boot setup with XP (for some old music software), W7 (for games), and Linux (for work and everything else). It sounds from comments here I may be in for an adventure when I upgrade to a UEFI system, though the UEFI workstation I have at work seems to handle dual-booting fine.
mindslight 13y ago
With the locked down antics that manufacturers are pulling these days, the only way to protect yourself is to root your device and install your preferred environment on it immediately after you obtain the device. Don't delay or procrastinate with excuses like wanting to try out the manufacturer's experience, waiting until you need the functionality, or wanting to prepare more. Every day you put it off, the more likely you will end up stuck with and dependent on a user-hostile device that you were tricked into. You need to run into every possible incompatibility or bricking while you're still well within the return and credit card dispute periods. And if you're actually unsure of how to proceed in making sure that shiny new device actually works for you, please please ask a technical friend for help. The future of society very much depends on it.
Zigurd 13y ago
Back when I did dual boot, I found I seldom used the Windows partition because, for the reasons I'd need a Windows machine, it wasn't a very good one. If you boot Windows for games, you are far better off buying or building a rig designed for gaming. Conversely, if you need a fast Linux software development system, swap out the hard disk of any decent Core i7 machine for an SSD, which will usually be smaller than the rotating media, which makes dual booting less attractive. And if you are shopping for a Linux machine that's less likely to be a hassle in any way, look for one that uses Intel graphics and has no 3rd party GPU.
Mikeb85 13y ago
This is why you should buy machines meant to run Linux, or known to run it well... System76, Dell dev laptop, ThinkPads, and custom parts for a desktop. If you do your homework, you'll always have a perfectly functioning system. My ThinkPad runs Ubuntu (and Suse) like they were meant for each other. And dual booting is always a PITA... Just delete Windows...
annasaru 13y ago
I am forced to dual boot because my colleagues use Skype. Luckily, my laptop has a mSata slot , so a 128 Gb card dedicated to Linux. Never been an issue with dual booting my Thinkpad.
- Tobu 13y ago
  Skype is available on Linux. On Ubuntu, it's in the "partner" repo.
  - listic 13y ago
    Yep, my only problem with Skype on Linux is that is an older version. Mumble taught me to use Push-to-talk, but it is only available on a newer version of Skype.
jrockway 13y ago
In this thread: a bunch of people who know nothing about computers spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt. The reality is: Windows boots fine with Secure Boot disabled. Linux boots fine from UEFI; the Debian installer sets everything up perfectly.
- yc-kjh 13y ago
  OpenBSD doesn't support UEFI, and will never boot from it. UEFI (better called Restricted Boot) takes away the user's freedom. I want to own my hardware. I don't want the manufacturer to own it. I don't truly own it unless I can run whatever software I want on it. I don't own it if it prevents me from doing anything I want to do -- no matter what that is.
  - just_bytecode 13y ago
    I guess I don't understand how UEFI is inherently less free than BIOS. I assume most of of the opposition is due to secure boot, but every implementation I've used let the user manage keys for secure boot or disable it entirely. Are there other reasons that UEFI is a threat to computing freedom?
    - yc-kjh 13y ago
      The Asus model 1015E does not let you disable Restricted Boot, nor does it allow you to re-enable Legacy Boot. I don't have direct proof or experience, but I understand that many other models (and manufacturers) are similarly broken.
      - jrockway 13y ago
        Buggy BIOS is nothing new.
yc-kjh 13y ago
OpenBSD does not support UEFI, and probably never will. http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.os.openbsd.misc/196288 http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.os.openbsd.misc/196288 Please note that OpenBSD has no problem handling large disks, greater than 2 TB. The problem is with the horrible Restricted Boot (UEFI) system. The Asus model 1015E is in violation of the requirement that UEFI (Restricted Boot) can be disabled, and that Legacy Boot can be enabled. I am boycotting all future Asus products, because I had to deal with this problem after I had already purchased one. It was difficult and painful to get my money back. If any manufacturer purposely builds systems without Restricted Boot, I will patronize them (even for non-Arm products). I am hoping that some manufacturer will build a line of Arm-based devices without Restricted Boot. (Yes, I know about BeagleBone, Raspberry Pi, etc. But these are not full-featured laptops. They are embedded machines aimed at embedded uses. I do use them for that purpose. Also note that the Raspberry Pi has the craptastic Broadcom chip, and it is anything but free [as in liberty] and open. http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.os.openbsd.misc/192942 http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.os.openbsd.misc/192942 Also, the recent release of source code from Broadcom is only open source wrappers that call proprietary binary blobs. Fsck Broadcom.)
- sounds 13y ago
  Please post a blog link to your Asus 1015E and Broadcom experiences. I want to reshare and help build community awareness.
  - yc-kjh 13y ago
    I don't blog.
    - sounds 13y ago
      Ok. I can respect that.
xarball 13y ago
I want to make this very clear: Dual-booting with UEFI is entirely possible, provided that your hardware allows entering EFI vars manually, in a SIGNED OS ENVIRONMENT. Every comment I've seen thus far doesn't seem to grasp that this is MANDATORY before you have the ability to finish installing a new bootloader. This is how UEFI protects itself from unauthorized OS signing! I have my own custom EFI vars set up with grub2 running on a GPT partition table, all booting beside windows, as purely as the air you breathe, and I'm loading custom Linux kernels daily and haven't ran into an issue since I originally set it up. Grub2 itself is my primary boot partition, which can then jump into the windows boot manager on the other disk. Grub2 itself has the capacity to act as a custom-signed EFI boot partition (Not sure if I've got the wording on that correct -- but the gist is there!). This means grub can be what your bios looks for the signature from. You don't absolutely need your kernel to be signed, provided you can get a signature produced from grub, OR you have the ability to write one while in a signed O/S. IF you want the easiest approach, look no further than any Linux distribution that purchased a key to find such a signed environment that permits the further writing of EFI variables. Or, even easier -- just write then boot grub 2's EFI-signed bootloader to a usb key to get started. After that, writing a new OS entry to UEFI should be the most straightforward thing to do in the world! *(You can even boot any kernel in the world with such a signed grub2 USB disk!)
linuxhansl 13y ago
The other part that really bugs me is that I cannot buy laptops without Windows from a lot of vendors. First thing I do is wipe any Windows/Recovery partition from the drive and install Linux. Yet, I know that Microsoft got their cut and there is nothing I can do about it. How this passes any reasonable antitrust test is beyond my comprehension; on the other hand what we call capitalism these days has not much to do with actual capitalism, so maybe I should not be surprised.
anon4 13y ago
Strange. When I built my current PC, I specifically set it up to boot in UEFI mode with secureboot disabled, so that windows won't thrash the mbr. Then I happily installed arch, everything worked fine (even though the double-bootloader, i.e. UEFI->grub->linux still makes me queasy). The only trouble was when afterwards I tried installing windows. At least at the time, windows 7 DVDs weren't able to boot in UEFI mode, therefore weren't able to use the GPT-partitioned hard-disk. The fix was easy enough at least - just copy the bootloader to the correct location on the DVD and it boots just fine.
listic 13y ago
I plan to buy Microsoft Surface Pro 2 http://www.microsoft.com/surface/en-us/products/surface-pro-2 http://www.microsoft.com/surface/en-us/products/surface-pro-... and install Ubuntu 14.04 on it, however idiosyncratic that may sound: from reading the reviews, I like this hardware and I want its features (note that 64/12). I choose a model with 256GB SSD because it has 8GB RAM. I'm aware of numerous issues with Surface Pro 2 and Ubuntu http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2183946 http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2183946 but I'm counting on 1) making it all work with community's support, as have some people in that thread 2) things improving in 14.04. I would use it solely with Ubuntu, but I'm not sure whether I can make Ubuntu run in a usable state right away, so I might dual-boot. What should I know beforehand about running Linux on UEFI computers before my Surface Pro 2 arrives?
blueskin_ 13y ago
Restricted Boot has been worked around for some time with Shim.
girvo 13y ago
All of this faff is the reason why my next laptop will be purchased with Linux already on it. System76, most likely, although I want the Dell XPS 13 Developer edition--you can't buy one from Australia. Which annoys me to no end (and if any lovely soul in the US feels like helping me...) For me, day to day, Linux makes an amazing desktop and development machine. It's been 7 years since I ran a Windows computer daily (although my iMac has a Bootcamp partition for DayZ), and I don't miss it, so I'm voting with my wallet. If you'd told me I could do that a decade ago, I would have thought you were nuts, but I'm happy that's the case now. I understand the Secure boot frustration, but without needing to dual boot it's a lot easier. We've ceded a lot of control, and yet I wonder if we ever had a real say in the matter. Oh well, I can buy Linux laptops, and that's what matters to me. Heck, it might be easier to get them to dual boot than a Windows laptop ;)

149 points by dopkew 13y ago

I really don't understand all these people having issues booting in UEFI mode. Fine, disable Secure Boot (or boot Fedora/Ubuntu if you care about it), load a recent distro and get on with your work/play.

CSDude 13y ago
If you disable UEFI, you need to install your system again, and you cannot use your old license to install it, at least in Win8. So you either buy another Win8. So disabling UEFI is not an option, for dual boot.
- higherpurpose 13y ago
  Holy cow, how are we just now finding out about this? So Microsoft is forcing you to buy yet another Windows license, after you already paid for the one included with the laptop, if you want to dual-boot? This should been a scandal when Windows 8 launched.
  - marcosdumay 13y ago
    It was, but the number of people spreading misinformation (like the top of this thread, or the article's author just a few days ago) was huge, and since nobody had firsthand experience with it, most people simply ignored. Any problem you have with your computer now, you are required to buy another Windows copy.
    - nkerkin 13y ago
      I'm confused, could you please elaborate on this? I successfully dual-booted a second-hand (wiped hdd, etc) Lenovo Carbon X1 w/ Ubuntu and Win8 from MSDN media. It picked up the pre-loaded Win8 license without issue.
  - tormeh 13y ago
    Not really. Installing Linux on a computer running UEFI is perfectly possible. It's just really hard. I'm typing this on just such a machine and it involved activating BIOS emulation and then when the Ubuntu purple loading disk screen came I needed to do a magic key-combo and set some options I don't remember. Then I needed to run bootrepair and instruct it to make Ubuntu UEFI bootable and finally I could turn off BIOS emulation. It's hard as fucking hell.
    - Wohui 13y ago
      The linux experience now extends before installation ;)
    - runejuhl 13y ago
      I installed Debian 7.4 on a Dell XPS 13 using a live hybrid ISO (`debian-live-7.4-amd64-standard+nonfree.iso`) two days ago. After enabling UEFI and adding the USB stick as a boot device, I had to do nothing out of the normal to get it to work. It was incredibly painless.
    - ac29 13y ago
      Anecdotal, but: I have linux installed on two machines with UEFI, and neither was much harder than a BIOS install. An extra step or two, but it didn't require more than a couple additional minutes. Sounds like the Ubuntu installer might just suck for UEFI.
    - zanny 13y ago
      My last two systems (desktops, I don't even have a working notebook right now, waiting for Broadwell) used Asrock and ASUS boards with EFI implementations that worked pretty well out of the box under Linux. One runs Suse 13.1, the other runs Arch. They both have their bugs - the Asrock system wipes the EFI boot table every firmware update, and the ASUS one can only have one entry in the EFI boot table, and neither has a working EFI shell - but I did my research to know they worked.
- ntakasaki 13y ago
  The parent poster said, disable UEFI Secure Boot, not UEFI, in which case Windows will continue to boot normally.
- thefreeman 13y ago
  Since when can you not use a windows license more then once.
  - pritambaral 13y ago
    The license key gets tied to certain system internals upon first use, and is checked against the existence and value of the same internals in subsequent checks. Apparently, toggling UEFI (and/or Secure Boot) modifies one such internal. EDIT: license -> license key
    - SEMW 13y ago
      Don't confuse the technology with the legalities. "The license" is a contractual right that you have legally purchased. If Microsoft's piracy-detecting hair-triggers are firing in a situation where you still have a license per the contact - oem licenses are usually "on this PC" or the like, so toggling UEFI alone shouldn't breach the terms - that should be their problem. You're entitled to your license.
    - justin66 13y ago
      And then you call Microsoft on the phone and they issue a reactivation, or whatever they call it, and everything is fine. Unless this works differently with OEM versions of Windows (different, more obtuse support people?) than it does with retail, I can't imagine it's actually a problem.
      - pritambaral 13y ago
        Most people don't realize this.
- noir_lord 13y ago
  > at least in Win8. So you either buy another Win8. So disabling UEFI is not an option, for dual boot. I don't use Windows however that would be the point where I'd just pirate it, if I buy a single user license for a piece of hardware I expect to be able to run it on that hardware. Fortunately my life and work (web dev) is better on Linux than Windows.
- yuhong 13y ago
  I believe this is a myth. The product key is stored using ACPI, not UEFI. Even MS mentioned that you can switch to BIOS mode in order to install 32-bit Win8.
oofabz 13y ago
Same here, I boot Linux from UEFI on several computers and it works fine. It boots faster and uses native display resolution instead of VESA. I dual boot Win 8, chainloading from GRUB. I think there are just a lot of people who don't know how to install GRUB to the EFI partition, or don't know how to edit their EFI boot menu with efibootmgr. UEFI is more complex than BIOS booting and if the only mental model you have is of a boot sector, you will have trouble understanding why a misbehaving system is acting as it is. I don't enjoy needing to fix my boot loader when I install Linux or update Windows, but I'm always able to make it work. I always had boot loader issues when I dual-booted BIOS systems too, so although it's still unpleasant, it's not any worse. It's just different and requires learning some new concepts and command-line tools.
- voltagex_ 13y ago
  From some of the replies below me, it looks like there are some horrible UEFI implementations. Your other option is to shove GRUB (or similar) on a FAT32 drive and boot from that when you want to boot Windows. FWIW, my key/activation is stored in firmware on my Lenovo X1 and I had no trouble when I disabled Secure Boot.
wheaties 13y ago
Let me explain this for you then, I have a Windows 8 Sony Vaio. If I disable Secure Boot and install Linux on a partition, the Bios doesn't work. Period. I've seen that a number of people got it to work for a while by modifying the grub loader and other hackery but then try updating Linux. Why? Buggy UEFI that is not "standards" compliant. If I try to use UEFI with a Linux distro that supports UEFI, I get a message saying something like "Can't find Windows."
- oofabz 13y ago
  I also have a Sony Vaio and I got UEFI working. The trick is, it is hardcoded to load the bootloader from /EFI/Boot/bootx64.efi - it does not respect the EFI boot menu. Linux is installing its UEFI bootloader to someplace like /EFI/debian/grubx64.efi. Move that file to /EFI/Boot/bootx64.efi and it will boot GRUB. You can chainload the Windows bootloader from GRUB.
- varkson 13y ago
  I had a tough time installing Ubuntu on my Vaio Pro 13, but got there in the end. I had to do a lot of messing around to get the shitty UEFI implementation to read Grub. Didn't have to disable SecureBoot or do anything much to Grub, besides a particular boot flat necessary for the SSD. It took about a day to get it up and running, but I've had no issues at all since.
- brerlapn 13y ago
  I have a Sony Vaio for work, and was completely unable to get it to run Linux even with a live USB or CD. My research turned up the issue you've identified--their UEFI software doesn't work right.

CSDude 13y ago

Hear my fucked up story of UEFI, Secure Boot and Windows 8: I have a Windows 8 laptop. It had 2 HDDs, so I easily installed Ubuntu 13.04 to second HDD. However, during a Win8 update process, it hanged for hours and I force closed. Then even my recovery partition was corrupted. So, I wiped my first HDD, and since the OEMs don't give DVDs anymore, I could not install it. I live in Turkey, and there is a special version of Win8 Single Language, not found on internet. You cannot confirm checksum of them because it is not widely used, and depends on the region I think (maybe wrong). Therefore, even If I found a iso on Turkish forum I could not verify it, but tried to install Single Language version anyways. But It could not verify my key, that is burried in my motherboard. I tried to install Windows 8 Pro from MSDNAA, and it said it cannot because of the internal license on my pc. I tried dozens of way to disable it. When I got Windows 8.1 Pro from MSDNAA as well, It installed without problems. That is really f*cked up. I did not like flatness of even windows, I disabled Secure Boot, removed my partioning from GPT to MBR, installed my Ubuntu with Windows 7 as it is used to be, before these dark times. Now I'm a teaching assitant of operating systems course, students need to use Linux for assignments, and almost all of them uses VirtualBox, which is not a very good replacement for native experience. It is fast, but not fast enough.

ntakasaki 13y ago
What has this got to do with Secure Boot?
- nosefrog 13y ago
  "But It could not verify my key, that is buried in my motherboard." Secure Boot systems verify your OS against a key stored on your hardware.
  - graycoder 13y ago
    I like the way you think.
  - ntakasaki 13y ago
    He's talking about Windows product key which has nothing to do with the secure boot key. You could have a properly activated Windows installation get stopped by Secure Boot because of failed boot kernel verification, or you could have Secure Boot verified boot failing Windows Activation.

higherpurpose 13y ago

There's another insane thing I've recently heard about - that Intel intends to lock the OS to their own (new) chips, and you can't dual-boot or install another OS. If they do this, yes I expect them to say that "the OEM has the choice" to allow for dual-booting or whatever, but I bet you 90 percent of PCs will be locked to Windows, when this arrives on Windows machines: https://plus.google.com/+GuidoStepken/posts/bD2VHB4LcEU https://plus.google.com/+GuidoStepken/posts/bD2VHB4LcEU

marcosdumay 13y ago
Well, once they do that, the same way that one should avoid Windows 8 if he wants to have a chance of running Linux, one will also be recommended to avoid an Intel processor if he wants control of his system. Except that Intel has less of a monopoly than Microsoft, so that's way easier.
- jcastro 13y ago
  This would be worse on laptops. It's braindead easy to just snag an Intel-based laptop and know everything will work out of the box. (Other than the Poulsbo netbooks generally speaking they've done a great job supporting Linux on their hardware). With AMD laptops you might end up with a Broadcom wireless card and an AMD GPU.
varkson 13y ago
There's no proof of this, just a Google+ translation of some news article.
userbinator 13y ago
I like how they use antivirus/antimalware software as an example, because it's what is almost universally considered "a good thing". The flip side of it is that this security software can also be used as a tool for mass censorship, and I certainly don't want something like that being impossible to remove and running in "ring -1".

codelap 13y ago

This isn't about UEFI, I've had no issues with it. Primarily because I don't use Windows on it. Microsoft is up to it's old tricks here. Then again, try to run OSX on a Dell. I just wish all these guys would get their heads out of there asses.

pritambaral 13y ago
> try to run OSX on a Dell I don't get what you're trying to say here, so pardon me if this response is totally orthogonal to your point. OS X isn't supposed to be run on PC's (laptop+desktop). Nor is it expected. Desktop Linux, however, is.
- rjbwork 13y ago
  Except that OSX does run on PC's. The architectures are identical now. My MacBook Pro can run windows natively because it is an x86/x64 architecture from the ground up.
  - pfraze 13y ago
    Yeah, it's called the Hackintosh
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - pritambaral 13y ago
    I am aware of the architecture of Mac hardware. But OS X doesn't have driver (thus hardware) support for all (or even a large range of) hardware that conform to the architecture. Apple develops (espcially when it comes to optimizations) OS X expressly for it's own selection of (as opposed to general purpose) hardware. Apple also goes so far as to actively try to prevent OS X running on non-Mac hardware[0]. Contrast this with Linux, *BSDs that are developed on and for a wide range of (and general purpose) hardware. [0]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple%E2%80%93Intel_architecture#Dont_Steal_Mac_OS_X.kext http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple%E2%80%93Intel_architectur...

pyre 13y ago

I don't get how UEFI is still "getting the kinks worked out." Hasn't Apple been using it since they converted to Intel? How many years ago was that? How long does it take to "get the kinks worked out?" Or is this more of an issue between Windows / Linux implementations of UEFI support?

rapala 13y ago
It's the classical problem of a standard that nobody actually follows. Every UEFI firmware that I have come across has behaved differently. My current laptop has an UEFI implementation that only boots from a hardcoded path in the EFI partition. You guessed right, the path of the windows 8 bootloader. The UEFI in my home server overwrites the UEFI boot manager list every time you save & exit the configuration tool. If I remember correctly, the UEFI implementation of a MBP that my friend and I tried to make dual boot Ubuntu required a blessed HFS boot partition for every OS.
- yuhong 13y ago
  My Acer require setting a BIOS password before modifying secure boot settings. Fortunately I can set it back to blank after modifying them.
- zanny 13y ago
  I'm really biased against Intel processors now because of this - I endure my distaste for how horribly documented and black box their parts are, but the fact their firmware for going on 6 generations has no documentation to enable coreboot on these boards drives me to AMD. Yea, they don't open up all their stuff, but if you dig around you can usually find a board on most chipsets that works with coreboot. That gets my purchase. Plus they are doing good work with the radeonSI mesa driver, even if they still pack binary power firmware with it (I've read a few articles decompiling and inspecting it to know it is mostly just init command code to start the hardware).
AnthonyMouse 13y ago
Apple makes both the OS and the UEFI implementation for their hardware. If the UEFI implementation caused any trouble for OS X, they could fix it before shipping the hardware. They also use a non-standard EFI implementation (IIRC the EFI partitions are HFS+ rather than FAT; whoever thought it was a good idea for EFI to read the partition table whatsoever should be fired). The issue with PC hardware is, as it ever was, hardware vendors not following the standard. Much like Apple and OS X, they build some implementation and only fix bugs if they break Windows. So if you want to build a Linux implementation, you have to implement workarounds for all the quirks in different vendors' EFI implementations, and in the meantime you can't install on their hardware.

keithpeter 13y ago

I currently use a couple of recycled core duo 2 thinkpads. BIOS so of course GNU/Linux installs easy either whole disk or dual boot with windows. In the future, I suppose I'll need to look to a Chromebook as a cheap platform for my GNU/Linux. Unless people actually start making open hardware...

grannyg00se 13y ago
No need to fear. I have a recent Thinkpad (T530) and it boots ArchLinux painlessly from USB or internal 32gig ssd. Also boots into windows8 from the main 120gig ssd if necessary. It's UEFI with secureboot disabled.
- lsiebert 13y ago
  Yeah I did something similar on my T530. Booting into Windows is a pain, compared to Mint. Everything wants to update and reboot.

userbinator 13y ago

I'm now happier than ever that I bought one of the last pure-BIOS motherboards of the i7 era, and a laptop (Thinkpad X60) that can run completely free software (https://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/endorsement/gluglug https://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/endorsement/gluglug , although I didn't know that when I bought it several years ago ), and I plan on holding on to these machines and making the most of them for as long as I can, because the future of the PC is looking more and more closed with each new change. It was only a few decades ago when IBM released the PC AT, complete with a full set of documentation, even the full source code of the BIOS. Now you're lucky if you can even get a datasheet for the SuperI/O chip or processor VRM controller. I've observed this decrease in openness through the years, but it's only most recently (post-Nehalem?) I've noticed this happening at an accelerated pace. Throughout this time, all the changes that have been made for "security" appear to me as more and more like attempts to secure systems against their users, taking control away from them and forcing them to trust some authority instead. Code signing, secure boot, TPM, patch protection, etc. It is becoming more difficult to stay in control of the hardware you bought. It is true that several years ago, it was probably much easier to infect systems with malware, but at the same time, the users had more freedom; including the freedom to explore, use, and modify the OSes of their choosing. Is this freedom something we should really be sacrificing? The well-known quote comes to mind: "Those who give up freedom for security deserve neither."

pwg 13y ago
> Throughout this time, all the changes that have been made for "security" appear to me as more and more like attempts to secure systems against their users, "The right to Read": http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html RMS was right all along. "The Coming War on General Purpose Computing" http://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html http://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html, Cory Doctorow, 17 years from now most will realize that Cory was also just as right as RMS was 17 years ago.
derefr 13y ago
I think it all comes down to the death of what was, in the 90s, called the "power user." There have always been two kinds of computer users: Administrators--those who can be trusted to administer their own systems; and Users--those who cannot, who need someone else to Administer their system for them. The Power User emerged as a gross hybrid because of the limitations of Personal Computer OSes. In Windows 98, for example, everyone was implicitly considered an Administrator, even if they had no idea how to Administer anything. (They were Users with the full Power of an Administrator.) What would frequently happen is that one person in an extended family would have such knowledge as to be capable of actually Administering computers, and would frequently have to drop in to perform Administrative maintenance for relatives, who had no idea they had to do such things themselves. Nobody would be looking out for the computer in the interstice. This era is thankfully over. What do we have now? No greater number of people capable of Administering their own computers, certainly. Instead, what happens now is that the hardware manufacturer provides hooks (the Secure Boot certificate store et al.) such that the computer's Owner can delegate Administrative power to the OS distributor (Microsoft, Apple, Canonical, etc.), leaving the Owner as a plain User. "That guy in the family who knows computers" no longer has to be involved--effectively, the OS distributor is "that guy." This is only really a problem for people who want to Administer their own computers (though in any form-factor where you can buy a motherboard separately, all these protections can be disabled.) Frankly, though, I see less and less of a need for people to Administer personal computers. PCs (I'm including both desktops and mobiles in this set), these days, are basically the equivalent of VT-100 terminals: fancy screens you buy, take out of the box, and plug directly into the internet. This is what I would call the "modern tinkerer mindset": • "Real Software" runs on Impersonal Computers: servers, either racked in your office, or existing nebulously in "the cloud." When you are developing this software, you keep a VM that simulates such an Impersonal Computer running on your Personal Computer, and interact with it as if it were a network resource. • Development of new Operating Systems occurs using a hardware emulator (really a more precise VM), like qemu. It then moves to ordinary VM software. Everyone else who tries your hobbyist OS will only want to run it in a VM themselves. Getting it running on Real Hardware is a 1.0 feature. • If you want to fiddle with hardware yourself, you get a Raspberry Pi, or any of innumerable other devices aimed squarely at tinkerers. You could develop an OS using these, too, although it's a much greater hassle than just using emulation software. These devices are open in ways Personal Computers never were, having everything from schematics to JTAG pins available. Given that mindset, what do you gain by having Administration rights to your new-age VT-100 Personal Computer? You might answer "the surety that Microsoft/Apple/etc. will never ban VM software from its platform", but no OS distributor would dream of doing this: after all, how, then, would its first- and third-party developers do their jobs? They rely on VM software just like the rest of us.

r0h1n 13y ago

This seems to be an explanation of how to install Ubuntu on an Acer laptop with Windows 8 - http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2176273&s=3a5c2ecb6245df86e17a7e1536084324&p=12800489#post12800489 http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2176273&s=3a5c2ecb6... I can't believe how convoluted and snafu-prone the process appears to be. I bought my Aspire V7 laptop in December and have never gotten around to installing Ubuntu on it simply because I dread the almost-guaranteed loss of 1-2 working days trying to undo whatever screwups happen. I can't imagine even one lay, non-Linux lover even thinking of attempting something like this.

mahouse 13y ago

So, I have a Lenovo laptop, running dual boot (formerly Gentoo, now Ubuntu) with Windows on UEFI using rEFInd. Zero problems so far. Am I lucky or what?!

fhars 13y ago
You are at least lucky that you didn't run into this issue https://plus.google.com/+MarcMERLIN/posts/4RDPCGYCDWq https://plus.google.com/+MarcMERLIN/posts/4RDPCGYCDWq where booting linux on certain UEFI enabled Thinkpads would reproducibly brick the machine.
- cannam 13y ago
  I have that machine, and I run Linux on it. His post was quite valuable, and that was obviously a bit of a horror on Lenovo's part, but it looks as if a subsequent BIOS update fixed it -- or at least I got a newer version of the BIOS than he refers to and I didn't get bricked. The machine has a terrible single-button trackpad arrangement, but is otherwise fabulously good as a Linux development box. (I do also run Windows, in a VM rather than dual-booting)
vetinari 13y ago
You don't need rEFInd with Lenovo. The built in EFI boot manager is good enough.

kclay 13y ago

I ran into this problem with an Acer laptop, somehow I got it working by disabling something in the bios (think legacy mode) then installed ubuntu from live cd and made that my boot loader. Ended up returning the laptop since I didn't like win8 and got a thinkpad T530 and mostly use ubuntu on it.

zokier 13y ago

I guess you get what you pay for; http://i.imgur.com/wZcxCGZ.jpg http://i.imgur.com/wZcxCGZ.jpg

junto 13y ago
Or more appropriately, you get what you don't pay for! :-)

marincounty 13y ago

I have come to the decision just not to buy anything HP. I had two horrid experiences with two HP laptops, and two printers that went too soon--1 less than a year--the other less than a week. Off subject, but when ever I hear HP I cringe.

buro9 13y ago
The key there is to only buy expensive HP stuff. Their office laser printers are great, and their workstations (e.g. the Z820) are pretty awesome. Their cheap stuff on the other hand... I agree with you on every point.

ganeumann 13y ago

The article claims: "One reason all PC's that come preinstalled with a Microsoft operating system is cheaper than regular laptop is that Microsoft subsidizes the cost of the hardware." I had always thought that PC makers paid Microsoft for Windows. The article claims that, instead, Microsoft pays the PC makers to install Windows. I don't see how this could possibly be true if most copies of Windows are sold pre-installed on PCs.

ams6110 13y ago
I've never heard that Microsoft pays OEMs but they certainly do give them a discounted price. Also it is my understanding that they do have some contract terms that either forbid sale of the same hardware with other OSes preinstalled or forbid sale at a lower price with other OS or no OS. This is all from years ago, I don't know what terms are these days. Obviously Dell, HP, etc. do have a few preinstalled Linux systems in their catalogs now.
ChuckMcM 13y ago
I too don't think this is accurate. What Intel and Microsoft have done is contributed marketing support dollars which, from a pure business analysis point, might be considered part of the cost of the system but it isn't what you or I would consider subsidizing the hardware. In marketing support programs Microsoft pays for a television advertisement for your product (very expensive) which points out how great it is because uses Microsoft Windows. Similarly with the Intel inside advertisements.
naner 13y ago
Microsoft charges for OEM licenses. PC manufacturers, however, will include other software with Windows for a fee (e.g. Imagine Adobe pays Dell for Adobe Reader to be included on Dell consumer systems). It is also plausible that Microsoft has a patent agreement with PC manufacturers so that they have to pay Microsoft a fee to ship systems with Linux installed. I know we've seen similar situations with companies that run Linux servers or sell Android devices.
Zigurd 13y ago
What they probably meant is that Windows is a profit center for HP because of the 3rd party crapware/bloatware loaded with Windows. They don't have similar deals for Linux, and that would probably chase off their Linux customers.

patcheudor 13y ago

I learned my lesson long ago. Linux is for VMs. I run vanilla Windows as my boot OS and then use Linux from within a VM, thus getting the benefits of Windows hardware compatibility where I need it. This lets me do things like run nine monitors when my laptop is docked by chaining DisplayLink adapters. Note that Windows with DisplayLink will only support eight monitors so for the ninth I bind the DisplayLink adapter to the VM for dual monitors with my Linux VM. Going above more than two monitors with a Linux host OS is akin to beating one's head into a wall, especially if you move between monitor configurations often, but just works in Windows. Thus far, with the ability for the VM to bind specific hardware directly and not shared via the host OS I get all the benefits of a Linux host OS without the hassle of broken driver implementations taking me down for long stretches at a time. As an example, I can bind my ALFA WiFi adapter directly to the Linux VM and run aircrack-ng all day long. Yes, there are drawbacks. You will need a bigger hard-drive (best if you can fit two in your laptop) and more memory, but those are cheap these days. The benefits, however are massive. I keep multiple VM versions and can instantly recover from anything stupid that I might do in the Linux kernel without impacting my ability to actually get my work done.

dm2 13y ago
I do the same thing, it works well. Do you use Windows 7 or 8 as your parent OS? I use VirtualBox and have found it reliable for years. The Windows host OS can then be kept very clean and it remains fast and relatively secure. Then in those rare instances when you need to download something insecure or that you don't want cluttering your Windows install you can put it in a virtual machine that acts as a sandbox. If you organize your files right you can even wipe your windows partition and reinstall with very little downtime and setup (other than the several gigs of updates that will be needed during the first few boots).
- patcheudor 13y ago
  I ran into some odd problems with the DisplayLink drivers after a couple years of success in Win 7 so I recently made the jump to Win 8.1. Most of my real work happens in my VM's so I don't mind it. My laptop has two 500 GB SSD's and has room for two more drives via mSATA cards. When I run out of room for VMs I'll go ahead and start populating the mSATA slots. I recently picked up a USB 3.0 256GB thumb drive and use it for VM portability between machines so I can leave my big laptop docked at work & take a lighter one on business trips. And yeah - you are right about very little downtime when reinstalling stuff. While my peers will be out for a week because of an OS or hardware failure I can be up and running again in no time at all.

plg 13y ago

Seems like a business opportunity: for companies to make their own linux friendly hardware ... or to modify existing laptops to be linux friendly.

HeyImAlex 13y ago

Girlfriends laptop is an HP pavilion g7 and no number of tutorials can get grub to load up on boot. She wants to boot to Ubuntu? Gotta remember to F12 into the bios and manually select it... But it seems like this is less of a UEFI issue and more of an HP shitty UEFI issue, since plenty of other manufacturers don't cause any problems.

bananas 13y ago

I never dual boot. It's a PITA with UEFI or not and has been since the dawn of time. It's Linux -or- Windows. UEFI is not a problem though - people need to stop badmouthing something they really don't understand. I settled on using Windows as a host OS[1] and use Linux on VMs because to be fair, Windows power management, suspend/resume and hibernate and driver support is miles better i.e. it actually works more than once. Oh and they really don't fuck up the kernel every 2 minutes like on Ubuntu and don't throw out buggy shit like Apple do. I used a 2011 MBP for the last 6 months or so however (with virtualbox) and I had to go back to an older and slower T400 as it was more reliable as well. So virtualbox on windows 7 it is. And it works really well. I'm pretty happy and I'm a picky as they come when it comes to hardware and software. On my desktop (a Dell T3500 with piles of RAM), it's 8.1 with Hyper-V with Linux in it as that works pretty damn well too. Is suspect the problem here is users rather than hardware and vendors. [1] On my Lenovo T400.

TazeTSchnitzel 13y ago
I also find dual boot painful. On my old machine I switched main OS several times (back and forth from Windows to Linux). I couldn't dual-boot because it just wouldn't be fun. There's no real way to share data properly between the two OSes, I wouldn't have the exact same set of available apps, etc. Now I have a MacBook with OS X. It combines the things I want from Windows and Linux, so I have no need to change OS. If I really need Linux or Windows for something, hardware virtualisation makes things easy.
- andrewflnr 13y ago
  A FAT32 partition doesn't do it for you? That's where I have all my music.
  - flogic 13y ago
    That helps but invariably you want to use both OS's at the same time. It sucks to have to reboot every time you want to shift data about. Much easier to have both machines running at the same time. VM's also have tools for the guest to share clipboards.

joyofdata 13y ago

For me precisely this was the final reason I needed to simply erase Windows 8 64bit Professional (which I paid for half a year earlier) and install Ubuntu 13.10. I was worried about driver issues and spending too much time adminstering my system instead of using it for being productive. I cannot emphasize enough how unnecessary those worries were - I f love it! As an IT guy using R, Git, Python and further Linux tools this made actually a lot of tasks way easier! My recommendation - f* dual boot - get rid of Windows and switch to Linux!

dopkew 13y ago
If you mention what your system is, then it could help others in making buying decisions. This would then send a message to hardware vendors that linux support gives them visibility and appreciation.
- zanny 13y ago
  https://www.system76.com/ https://www.system76.com/ https://www.thinkpenguin.com/ https://www.thinkpenguin.com/ https://www.dell.com/us/business/p/xps-13-linux/pd https://www.dell.com/us/business/p/xps-13-linux/pd And others. Really, if you are buying a new system for Linux, and it isn't a custom desktop, just buy a notebook from a Linux provider so you know modern kernels support the thing out of the box flawlessly.

derekp7 13y ago

Here's my rant on how Secure boot should be done. Currently, you have Microsoft's public key certificates in the firmware, and you can either boot with secure boot on or off. I would rather that the certificates be treated similar to a web browsers, where you have a list of "official" certs belonging to multiple independent entities. In addition, when in secure mode, you shouldn't be able to boot from unsigned media. Now here's where I think this can be improved. Usually, hitting something like F12 at boot time gives you a list of devices to boot from (internal drive, USB devices, DVD, network, etc). What I'd like to see added to this is an item labeled "Boot from unsigned DVD/USB/Network [for OS installation mode]". Once this is selected, whatever you boot would have access to adding additional certificates to the firmware. Or, more appropriately, you should be able to select 3 boot options: 1) boot from signed media; 2) boot from unsigned media; 3) boot from unsigned media with write access to certificate key store [OS installation mode]. That way, the end user can still maintain complete control over their hardware, yet still get the benefits of protection against boot sector malware / low level root kits.

Locke1689 13y ago
This sounds like secure boot's "Custom Mode." 'Certified for Win8' requires that all non-ARM machines support either Secure Boot Custom Mode or SB disabled. I would hope they would support custom, but that's the manufacturer's prerogative.
- yc-kjh 13y ago
  Asus does not support disabling Restricted Boot for their model 1015E.
  - Locke1689 13y ago
    Cite?
betterunix 13y ago
I have a simpler solution: the bootloader is kept on a separate storage device, which can only be written to if the computer is booted up in a special mode. No signing needed, prevents common bootloader viruses, respects user freedom.

lunulata 13y ago

"My journey into hell began about two months ago when I purchased a new HP laptop computer..." That'll teach you. Next time don't buy HP. Those super cheap laptops come at the price of quality and decent support. You pay for it one way or another. As for the UEFI being bad or not working well with Linux, I disagree. I think you just don't know what you're doing and HP support is bad with no documentation.

zyztem 13y ago

Actually, it is not that difficult to dual boot Windows/Linux with UEFI. You just need more understanding about this whole thing. I can recommend Arch wiki article: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Unified_Extensible_Firmware_Interface https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Unified_Extensible_Firm... And http://www.rodsbooks.com/efi-bootloaders/ http://www.rodsbooks.com/efi-bootloaders/ Kernels 3.3+ can be loaded from EFI partition directly without additional bootloader, no need to wrestle with grub-efi. This blog explains required configuration: http://wolfwings.dreamwidth.org/224805.html http://wolfwings.dreamwidth.org/224805.html

zanny 13y ago
efibootmgr makes it really simple to set up. When I get a new computer with Arch, once I install the base system, my bootloader is literally just: efibootmgr -c -l /vmlinuz-linux -L "Archlinux" -u "initrd=/initramfs-linux.img root=<root partition uuid> ro quiet splash security=tomoyo" Assuming /boot is my efi system partition. The real problem is that most motherboard manufacturers have absolute garbage bloated proprietary messes of EFI implementations, and we are stuck with Intel jamming this shit down our throats in the first place rather than opening up their chipset documentation so we could have coreboot support on these boards.
Adam503 13y ago
We know all about Hacker News "not that dificult" I smell a simple 26 step process that can't legally be done in some parts of the Middle East and N. Korea, a few assembler and brainf*ck scripts, and a little simple arc-welding.

harrystone 13y ago

No problems here, I just don't dual boot. I recently got a new machine at work and the first thing I did was wipe it and install Slackware. It was my maiden voyage with UEFI which was a pain in the ass but no big deal.

sherr 13y ago

A lot of commentary here and in the article was worrying to me. Directly relevant since I bought a cheap (good value) Lenovo G510 laptop today that came with Win 8.1. I didn't want to use Windows at all, just boot Clonezilla straightaway, clone the HDD and then install Debian. No go on booting from CD - "not allowed" due to the security setup. Ah, OK .. so it then boots Win 8.1 and I had to go through various Windows setups I wanted to avoid before rebooting and trying again. It was then I had to figure out the BIOS side of things and saw it was all UEFI. I just turned it off and switched to "legacy" mode (BIOS legacy I assume) and disabled secure boot. Cloned the HDD, booted the Debian Testing CDROM and now have a "Jessie" install on it.

voltagex_ 13y ago
Lenovo laptops will boot the beta/new Clonezilla fine. Just disable Secure Boot. Debian will boot in about 5 seconds with UEFI and an SSD.

nitrogen 13y ago

I'm still using a BIOS-based i7 system with a successful and stable triple-boot setup with XP (for some old music software), W7 (for games), and Linux (for work and everything else). It sounds from comments here I may be in for an adventure when I upgrade to a UEFI system, though the UEFI workstation I have at work seems to handle dual-booting fine.

mindslight 13y ago

With the locked down antics that manufacturers are pulling these days, the only way to protect yourself is to root your device and install your preferred environment on it immediately after you obtain the device. Don't delay or procrastinate with excuses like wanting to try out the manufacturer's experience, waiting until you need the functionality, or wanting to prepare more. Every day you put it off, the more likely you will end up stuck with and dependent on a user-hostile device that you were tricked into. You need to run into every possible incompatibility or bricking while you're still well within the return and credit card dispute periods. And if you're actually unsure of how to proceed in making sure that shiny new device actually works for you, please please ask a technical friend for help. The future of society very much depends on it.

Zigurd 13y ago

Back when I did dual boot, I found I seldom used the Windows partition because, for the reasons I'd need a Windows machine, it wasn't a very good one. If you boot Windows for games, you are far better off buying or building a rig designed for gaming. Conversely, if you need a fast Linux software development system, swap out the hard disk of any decent Core i7 machine for an SSD, which will usually be smaller than the rotating media, which makes dual booting less attractive. And if you are shopping for a Linux machine that's less likely to be a hassle in any way, look for one that uses Intel graphics and has no 3rd party GPU.

Mikeb85 13y ago

This is why you should buy machines meant to run Linux, or known to run it well... System76, Dell dev laptop, ThinkPads, and custom parts for a desktop. If you do your homework, you'll always have a perfectly functioning system. My ThinkPad runs Ubuntu (and Suse) like they were meant for each other. And dual booting is always a PITA... Just delete Windows...

annasaru 13y ago

I am forced to dual boot because my colleagues use Skype. Luckily, my laptop has a mSata slot , so a 128 Gb card dedicated to Linux. Never been an issue with dual booting my Thinkpad.

Tobu 13y ago
Skype is available on Linux. On Ubuntu, it's in the "partner" repo.
- listic 13y ago
  Yep, my only problem with Skype on Linux is that is an older version. Mumble taught me to use Push-to-talk, but it is only available on a newer version of Skype.

jrockway 13y ago

In this thread: a bunch of people who know nothing about computers spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt. The reality is: Windows boots fine with Secure Boot disabled. Linux boots fine from UEFI; the Debian installer sets everything up perfectly.

yc-kjh 13y ago
OpenBSD doesn't support UEFI, and will never boot from it. UEFI (better called Restricted Boot) takes away the user's freedom. I want to own my hardware. I don't want the manufacturer to own it. I don't truly own it unless I can run whatever software I want on it. I don't own it if it prevents me from doing anything I want to do -- no matter what that is.
- just_bytecode 13y ago
  I guess I don't understand how UEFI is inherently less free than BIOS. I assume most of of the opposition is due to secure boot, but every implementation I've used let the user manage keys for secure boot or disable it entirely. Are there other reasons that UEFI is a threat to computing freedom?
  - yc-kjh 13y ago
    The Asus model 1015E does not let you disable Restricted Boot, nor does it allow you to re-enable Legacy Boot. I don't have direct proof or experience, but I understand that many other models (and manufacturers) are similarly broken.
    - jrockway 13y ago
      Buggy BIOS is nothing new.

yc-kjh 13y ago

OpenBSD does not support UEFI, and probably never will. http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.os.openbsd.misc/196288 http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.os.openbsd.misc/196288 Please note that OpenBSD has no problem handling large disks, greater than 2 TB. The problem is with the horrible Restricted Boot (UEFI) system. The Asus model 1015E is in violation of the requirement that UEFI (Restricted Boot) can be disabled, and that Legacy Boot can be enabled. I am boycotting all future Asus products, because I had to deal with this problem after I had already purchased one. It was difficult and painful to get my money back. If any manufacturer purposely builds systems without Restricted Boot, I will patronize them (even for non-Arm products). I am hoping that some manufacturer will build a line of Arm-based devices without Restricted Boot. (Yes, I know about BeagleBone, Raspberry Pi, etc. But these are not full-featured laptops. They are embedded machines aimed at embedded uses. I do use them for that purpose. Also note that the Raspberry Pi has the craptastic Broadcom chip, and it is anything but free [as in liberty] and open. http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.os.openbsd.misc/192942 http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.os.openbsd.misc/192942 Also, the recent release of source code from Broadcom is only open source wrappers that call proprietary binary blobs. Fsck Broadcom.)

sounds 13y ago
Please post a blog link to your Asus 1015E and Broadcom experiences. I want to reshare and help build community awareness.
- yc-kjh 13y ago
  I don't blog.
  - sounds 13y ago
    Ok. I can respect that.

xarball 13y ago

I want to make this very clear: Dual-booting with UEFI is entirely possible, provided that your hardware allows entering EFI vars manually, in a SIGNED OS ENVIRONMENT. Every comment I've seen thus far doesn't seem to grasp that this is MANDATORY before you have the ability to finish installing a new bootloader. This is how UEFI protects itself from unauthorized OS signing! I have my own custom EFI vars set up with grub2 running on a GPT partition table, all booting beside windows, as purely as the air you breathe, and I'm loading custom Linux kernels daily and haven't ran into an issue since I originally set it up. Grub2 itself is my primary boot partition, which can then jump into the windows boot manager on the other disk. Grub2 itself has the capacity to act as a custom-signed EFI boot partition (Not sure if I've got the wording on that correct -- but the gist is there!). This means grub can be what your bios looks for the signature from. You don't absolutely need your kernel to be signed, provided you can get a signature produced from grub, OR you have the ability to write one while in a signed O/S. IF you want the easiest approach, look no further than any Linux distribution that purchased a key to find such a signed environment that permits the further writing of EFI variables. Or, even easier -- just write then boot grub 2's EFI-signed bootloader to a usb key to get started. After that, writing a new OS entry to UEFI should be the most straightforward thing to do in the world! *(You can even boot any kernel in the world with such a signed grub2 USB disk!)

linuxhansl 13y ago

The other part that really bugs me is that I cannot buy laptops without Windows from a lot of vendors. First thing I do is wipe any Windows/Recovery partition from the drive and install Linux. Yet, I know that Microsoft got their cut and there is nothing I can do about it. How this passes any reasonable antitrust test is beyond my comprehension; on the other hand what we call capitalism these days has not much to do with actual capitalism, so maybe I should not be surprised.

anon4 13y ago

Strange. When I built my current PC, I specifically set it up to boot in UEFI mode with secureboot disabled, so that windows won't thrash the mbr. Then I happily installed arch, everything worked fine (even though the double-bootloader, i.e. UEFI->grub->linux still makes me queasy). The only trouble was when afterwards I tried installing windows. At least at the time, windows 7 DVDs weren't able to boot in UEFI mode, therefore weren't able to use the GPT-partitioned hard-disk. The fix was easy enough at least - just copy the bootloader to the correct location on the DVD and it boots just fine.

listic 13y ago

I plan to buy Microsoft Surface Pro 2 http://www.microsoft.com/surface/en-us/products/surface-pro-2 http://www.microsoft.com/surface/en-us/products/surface-pro-... and install Ubuntu 14.04 on it, however idiosyncratic that may sound: from reading the reviews, I like this hardware and I want its features (note that 64/12). I choose a model with 256GB SSD because it has 8GB RAM. I'm aware of numerous issues with Surface Pro 2 and Ubuntu http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2183946 http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2183946 but I'm counting on 1) making it all work with community's support, as have some people in that thread 2) things improving in 14.04. I would use it solely with Ubuntu, but I'm not sure whether I can make Ubuntu run in a usable state right away, so I might dual-boot. What should I know beforehand about running Linux on UEFI computers before my Surface Pro 2 arrives?

blueskin_ 13y ago

Restricted Boot has been worked around for some time with Shim.

girvo 13y ago

All of this faff is the reason why my next laptop will be purchased with Linux already on it. System76, most likely, although I want the Dell XPS 13 Developer edition--you can't buy one from Australia. Which annoys me to no end (and if any lovely soul in the US feels like helping me...) For me, day to day, Linux makes an amazing desktop and development machine. It's been 7 years since I ran a Windows computer daily (although my iMac has a Bootcamp partition for DayZ), and I don't miss it, so I'm voting with my wallet. If you'd told me I could do that a decade ago, I would have thought you were nuts, but I'm happy that's the case now. I understand the Secure boot frustration, but without needing to dual boot it's a lot easier. We've ceded a lot of control, and yet I wonder if we ever had a real say in the matter. Oh well, I can buy Linux laptops, and that's what matters to me. Heck, it might be easier to get them to dual boot than a Windows laptop ;)