[ubuntu-uk] efi boot, Windows 8 and Linux

[Alan Bell]

On 21/09/11 23:29, Bea Groves wrote:
> Just read the following. Comments?
>
yeah, it is potentially very nasty.
To be Windows 8 certified computers will have to be able to do this 
secure boot thing. Most will include an option to turn it off, exactly 
like the google chromebooks do, they have a switch to turn off the code 
signing requirement so you can run unsigned operating systems. The OLPC 
also has this exact same feature, but you can get a dev key and turn it off.
The problem is that some manufacturers might start not bothering to 
include an off switch. So that would creep in as a set of machines 
(probably quite mainstream high volume ones) that won't run anything but 
the pre-installed Windows 8 or above.
The big problem is that Windows 9 might *require* secure boot to run. 
This means it won't run on older machines (driving hardware sales, the 
industry likes that) and means that more manufacturers will fail to 
include an off switch for the secure boot. If the market doesn't punish 
them by people avoiding these pre-bricked computers then they will keep 
doing it. Microsoft will carefully not require OEMs to fail to include 
an off switch, because that would be anti-competitive. Virtualbox and 
VMware and so on can include the public keys and provide a secure boot 
environment, or run unsigned code for developing drivers and running 
Linux, but you won't be running Linux on the hardware, only virtualised. 
It is kind of like the current trend for using up 4 primary partitions 
and not creating extended partitions to make dual booting harder, but 
this one you potentially can't get round. I can see a time when you have 
to get a laptop chipped to run Linux like you would a DVD player to do 
multi region.

Alan.

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