Specifying mobos: was: To Tux or not to Tux

[Steve Litt]

Cool!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SteveT

On Wed, 20 Apr 2016 07:27:25 -0700
Stephen Partington <cryptworks at gmail.com> wrote:

> Option to turn it on or off, yes.
> 
> On Tue, Apr 19, 2016 at 11:49 PM, Steve Litt
> <slitt at troubleshooters.com> wrote:
> 
> > Does your Dell Latitude enable you to turn off secure boot, thereby
> > being accessible to all Linuces and to custom kernels?
> >
> > SteveT
> >
> > On Tue, 19 Apr 2016 13:22:17 -0700
> > Stephen Partington <cryptworks at gmail.com> wrote:
> >  
> > > The Dell uefi bios on their latitude series has not given me any
> > > issue at all with any os. Except OSX, and that is a special
> > > weirdness. Asus gaming oriented board tend to be (for lack of a
> > > better word) persnickety. And mostly this was an issue with
> > > trying to wrangle a dual boot scenario with Windows 10 and they
> > > were writing over each other in the boot space of the bios. Even
> > > when using grub. It was strange. But the board I have is one of
> > > those prosumer/gamer oriented boards so it does not have the
> > > simplicity of their workstation boards or dell's work oriented
> > > hardware. On Apr 19, 2016 11:18 AM, "Michael Butash"
> > > <michael at butash.net> wrote: 
> > > > 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