Specifying mobos: was: To Tux or not to Tux

[Michael Butash]

I agree here, it is an important factor, but really only to us linux 
folk.  Windoze people remain blissfully ignorant mostly except when 
dealing with the horrible bioses these days built for uefi.  I think diy 
mobo's will remain safe, but laptops are a wildcard when dealing with 
non-business class devices.  Dell seems good about keeping legacy boot 
options at least, and keeping some sense of linux friendliness in 
general (they do have a desktop linux mailing list people respond on).

Getting that asus laptop that would "only" do uefi was just painful as I 
had ass-u-me'd that it *could* be switched to legacy boot, and delayed 
my usability significantly since forcing me to learn some new method 
with questionable value.  UEFI just seems like another half-way good 
idea turned terrible by letting microsoft steer and dictate its 
implementation, as they seemed the only one that cared, and obviously 
only about the windoze implementation.

I'm all for learning something new, but not when the only value is 
keeping the relevance of windoze on my hardware, which is entirely 
undesirable.

-mb


On 04/19/2016 10:34 AM, Steve Litt wrote:
> On Tue, 19 Apr 2016 10:02:03 -0700
> Wayne D <waydavis at centurylink.net> wrote:
>
>
>>> Some day UEFI might be good, but right now you hear too much about
>>> people bricking their mobos via interaction with their OS and the
>>> UEFI storage area, or Linux people doing rm -rf only to find out
>>> that included the mounted UEFI variable area.
>>>
>>> And then there's the whole Secure Boot fiasco. No problem if you
>>> use a major Linux that's purchased a key from Microsoft, but all
>>> bets are off if you compile your own kernel.
>>
>> You really know how to pee on a parade... LOL   Ya, I'm cringing a
>> little over this one.
> If mobo makers want to force UEFI, or worse, Secure Boot on us, well,
> I guess that's their right. But this is such an important thing, I
> think that ability to boot MBR and ability to turn off Secure Boot
> should be a very prominent spec, right along with number of memory
> slots and enumeration of extension slots.
>
> The fact that you have to find these things out after having the
> product shipped to you, and then play the RMA game or just eat
> something you don't want, is inexcusable.
>
> You should contact the manufacturer, and ask it point blank:
>
> 1) Can you boot to a genuine MBR, and how?
> 2) Can you turn off Secure Boot, and how?
>
> SteveT
>
> Steve Litt
> April 2016 featured book: Rapid Learning for the 21st Century
> http://www.troubleshooters.com/rl21
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