Ubuntu on UEFI and Win 8

[JD]

On 01/07/2013 01:33 PM, Avi Greenbury wrote:
> JD wrote:
>> On 01/06/2013 05:23 AM, william drescher wrote:
>>> On 1/6/2013 6:02 AM, Colin Law wrote:
>>>> Is there a definitive guide to dual booting Ubuntu with Win 8 with (or
>>>> without?) UEFI BIOS?  It seems strange that neither [1] nor [2] make
>>>> any mention of this but a couple of minutes googling suggests it is
>>>> problematic.
>>>>
>>>> [1] http://www.ubuntu.com/download/help/install-desktop-latest
>>>> [2] https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BootFromCD
>>>>
>>>> Colin
>>>>
>>> This is not a definitive guide.  I suspect the problem is that
>>> Win8 does not shut down when it shuts down.  A recent article in
>>> Windows Secrets told how you can actually get it to shut down and
>>> then if you do a cold boot you can choose which to boot.
>>> http://windowssecrets.com/
>>>
>>>
>> If you are using a uefi bios,
> UEFI is not a BIOS, it is a BIOS replacement.
In a high school literature test, a student was asked to
write something about Homer's Iliad. The student
had scribbled
"....... it not written by Homer, but by another man with the same name 
...."

I hope you get my drift :) :)

>
>> then the OS must have a Microsoft-issued signature
>> in order for bios to boot it.
> If it has secure-boot, which is an optional feature of UEFI, enabled
> then it will only boot things which are signed with a key matching one
> in its own keyring.
>
> Windows 8 certified devices must have secure boot enabled and must
> have at least the Windows 8 keys in them. Windows 8 certified devices
> shipping hardware not supported by Windows 8 itself (i.e. requiring
> non-MS drivers) will also need the keys from MS's signing service,
> which is the means MS offer to have your software signed for approval
> in this way, primarily aimed at OEMs who need to ship drivers.
>
>> I do not know if Linux Distros will cave in and ask Microsoft to
>> bless their Linux
>> kernels with a MS issued signature.
> MJG's 'shim' has been signed so, using MS's keysigning service, and
> can effectively be used to boot arbitrary OSes. It should work on any
> hardware that ships with non-MS drivers which doesn't include MS
> Surface but will probably come to include most or all  non-MS hardware.
>
>> On the Fedora mailing list, this issue was discussed to great lengths,
>> sometimes with a great amount of acrimony and insults going back and forth.
>> The thing that I remember one knowledgeable OP mention, is that if you
>> disable the UEFI in Bios, then you can boot whatever you like,
>> including Linux.
> You would disable secure boot in UEFI. There is no BIOS and UEFI
> itself has no necessity for secure-boot, it's Windows that does.
>

My suspicion about secure boot, is that it a first foot in the door.
Can you see that it may become a fixed feature that cannot be disabled?
I certainly see that it is a very strong possibility.

With Windows owning 98% of the world desktop market,
I can see that dual booting may at least become a tough
if not impossible thing to do.

So, hold on to you old non-secure-uefi hardware.
You may very well need it in the future :)