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> 1. Windows playing well with other OS on my laptop. I updated my Windows 8 to Windows 8.1 and I could no longer boot into Linux It does, as long as you use U

> 1. Windows playing well with other OS on my laptop. I updated my Windows 8 to Windows 8.1 and I could no longer boot into Linux It does, as long as you use UEFI boot, since this was specifically designed to allow clean booting from multiple OSes without creating conflicts. If you're using legacy MBR/BIOS boot, supporting multibooting involves so many unreliable hacks, you can't realistically expect it to be supported by anyone.

michaelmrose 12y ago
Except every linux distro on earth...ever. Its sufficient just to NOT overwrite the mbr with your own bootloader if you see one is already there. Pretending this is hard is pretty disingenuous.
- josteink 12y ago
  And how do you separate a "good" Linux/BSD Bootloader from random bits? What about private/custom grub-builds? A single false positive here means a valid windows 8 install will fail to boot because a Bootloader was not written. Do you think Microsoft is willing to take that risk? Just leave MBR behind. UEFI does what you want. UEFI is nice.
  - anonbanker 12y ago
    Except for that whole "secure boot" business, where I have to half-install a fedora or Ubuntu install in order to get a proper signed key, so that I can wipe the drive and install gentoo or arch.
    - josteink 12y ago
      Secure boot is optional in the UEFI spec. You don't need to enable it if you don't want it. And a compliant UEFI firmware should let you provide your own trust keys. Which by default makes it more reputable and secure than the internet CA-model everyone else is willing to put their trust in. So tell me what your problem is. I'm genuinely curious.
      - anonbanker 12y ago
        Seems windows 10 is making secure boot mandatory. This means my problem is Microsoft is still playing the "embrace/extend/extinguish" game as usual, and the Halloween Documents are still totally relevant. Please show me a compliant UEFI firmware that allows for custom keys. I'm genuinely curious.
        josteink 12y ago
        Your claim was new to me so I did some very basic checking and found this: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/03/windows-10-to-make-the-secure-boot-alt-os-lock-out-a-reality/ http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/03/window... What it says is not that it must be mandatory, but that being able to disable secure-boot is not a requirement. It's clearly sneaky, but it's not the same. Note also that nowhere does it say that you can no longer install your own keys. Some parts are what I'd call "sneaky", but this Windows 10 spec is not hijacking the X86 architecture to run Windows only, like you hint at either. As for adding your own keys, I only have Intel mobos with UEFI and I've seen menus for adding them. This article from the intel forums seems to give you some leads if you want to go looking: https://communities.intel.com/community/itpeernetwork/vproexpert/blog/2012/06/26/microsoft-windows-8--enabling-secure-boot?forceNoRedirect=true https://communities.intel.com/community/itpeernetwork/vproex...
        anonbanker 12y ago
        Thanks for the link. That's the first time I've seen an implementation. And I've looked at a bunch of devices from different vendors. Unfortunately, this means that i can have my own key if I avoid tablets and laptops, and only build my own hardware. I'll still have to use Canonical or RedHat's (possibly NSA/GCHQ-compromised) keys in order to have portable computing.
- pix64 12y ago
  So how do you know the current bootloader will actually boot your new Windows installation? You don't. Now you have people confused why they can't install windows. This is a very bad "solution".

michaelmrose 12y ago

Except every linux distro on earth...ever. Its sufficient just to NOT overwrite the mbr with your own bootloader if you see one is already there. Pretending this is hard is pretty disingenuous.

josteink 12y ago
And how do you separate a "good" Linux/BSD Bootloader from random bits? What about private/custom grub-builds? A single false positive here means a valid windows 8 install will fail to boot because a Bootloader was not written. Do you think Microsoft is willing to take that risk? Just leave MBR behind. UEFI does what you want. UEFI is nice.
- anonbanker 12y ago
  Except for that whole "secure boot" business, where I have to half-install a fedora or Ubuntu install in order to get a proper signed key, so that I can wipe the drive and install gentoo or arch.
  - josteink 12y ago
    Secure boot is optional in the UEFI spec. You don't need to enable it if you don't want it. And a compliant UEFI firmware should let you provide your own trust keys. Which by default makes it more reputable and secure than the internet CA-model everyone else is willing to put their trust in. So tell me what your problem is. I'm genuinely curious.
    - anonbanker 12y ago
      Seems windows 10 is making secure boot mandatory. This means my problem is Microsoft is still playing the "embrace/extend/extinguish" game as usual, and the Halloween Documents are still totally relevant. Please show me a compliant UEFI firmware that allows for custom keys. I'm genuinely curious.
      - josteink 12y ago
        Your claim was new to me so I did some very basic checking and found this: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/03/windows-10-to-make-the-secure-boot-alt-os-lock-out-a-reality/ http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/03/window... What it says is not that it must be mandatory, but that being able to disable secure-boot is not a requirement. It's clearly sneaky, but it's not the same. Note also that nowhere does it say that you can no longer install your own keys. Some parts are what I'd call "sneaky", but this Windows 10 spec is not hijacking the X86 architecture to run Windows only, like you hint at either. As for adding your own keys, I only have Intel mobos with UEFI and I've seen menus for adding them. This article from the intel forums seems to give you some leads if you want to go looking: https://communities.intel.com/community/itpeernetwork/vproexpert/blog/2012/06/26/microsoft-windows-8--enabling-secure-boot?forceNoRedirect=true https://communities.intel.com/community/itpeernetwork/vproex...
        anonbanker 12y ago
        Thanks for the link. That's the first time I've seen an implementation. And I've looked at a bunch of devices from different vendors. Unfortunately, this means that i can have my own key if I avoid tablets and laptops, and only build my own hardware. I'll still have to use Canonical or RedHat's (possibly NSA/GCHQ-compromised) keys in order to have portable computing.
pix64 12y ago
So how do you know the current bootloader will actually boot your new Windows installation? You don't. Now you have people confused why they can't install windows. This is a very bad "solution".