Windows 8 Hardware Has Another Problem For Linux

[Sonadow]

I believe so. This is from my 5 yr old notebook running Windows 8 (obviously no EFI during that time):





Since this machine clearly doesn't have UEFI that partition cannot be an EFI system partition (not to mention that I understand that EFI system partitions must be formatted as FAT32 and not NTFS). Furthermore, I performed a 'Refresh My PC' operation on this notebook once just to play with the feature and it did not ask me to provide the Win8 DVD for the restore operation. Based on this I am of the idea that this partition stores, at least, something that is related to the restore operations offered by Windows 8.

Now, compare those screenshots to this of my SurfaceRT, which uses UEFI:



The EFI system partition is clearly labelled as a FAT32 partition and is no larger than 200MB.

[Delgarde]

Not so fast...

I've only ever done the USB stick thing a few times, it's faster to burn a 4GB ISO to DVD that to a stick over USB2.

Not if you factor in the fact that you don't actually have any blank media, and would need to go down to the local electronics store to buy some. Because why would I want a bunch of bulky low-capacity single-use DVDs sitting around for next time I want to reinstall a machine, when a re-usable high-capacity USB stick will work?

[duby229]

And you can. Just turn off Secure Boot.

The thing that currently annoys me the most about Secure Boot is that it's difficult to fork distribution kernels now. I needed to do that for debugging purposes lately, and I had to edit the spec files for a while to disable the signing mechanism. Without that the fork just wouldn't build. I don't have Secure Boot to begin with, so signing the kernel is utterly useless to me, so this feels like a pointless hindrance at this point...

Yeah absolutely... Make sure you tell everyone. The more people that disable secureboot the better.

[mjg59]

It's not copyright protected intellectual property. I don't "rent" my computer. It's mine. I own it. I should be able to do what I want, when I want and how I want. There shouldnt be any kind of key at all. Period. There is no good reason for -anyone- to issue keys to allow me to boot. I should be able to boot whatever whenever and where ever. Period.

As long as you buy a Windows 8 certified x86 system, as far as Secure Boot is concerned you are able to boot whatever, whenever and wherever. You can remove the Microsoft keys. You can install your own keys. You can disable the feature entirely.

[mjg59]

A subsidised ARM-based Samsung one with built-in 3G is the next item on my shopping list.

Chromebooks (including the ARM ones) ship with something that's almost functionally identical to UEFI Secure Boot. By default they'll only sign things signed by Google. You can disable that, but then you either need to hit a key on every boot or wait 30 seconds before it'll start booting. There's no way to install your own keys unless you disassemble the machine, re-jumper the flash, write a modified firmware image that contains new keys, jumper it back and put your machine back together. There's no Fast Boot problem, but as far as Secure Boot goes it's actually *more difficult* to set up a Chromebook than a Windows 8 system.

[Ibidem]

@TheLexMachine:
Both my new computers have no optical drive, and the closest I have is the CD partition on my U3 drive...which, by the way, does work very well for booting from...
Hardly anyone at the university LUG used a CD/DVD to install; USB was almost universal.

@whoever said "tablets and netbooks almost all have soldered-in flash":
Tablets, sure, but not netbooks. Not the one I'm typing on, at least.

I would agree that anything soldered-in should be treated as dead for just that reason, though...

@Sonadow:
Restore is usually ~10 GB, and under 3 GB it could not possibly hold enough for recovering Windows.
If it's in the 100-500 MB range, it is almost certainly a "boot" partition.
Restore is pretty standard now, though.
But you are missing one thing: If you have UEFI, you can use GPT...which gives a lot more partitions.

[GreatEmerald]

I believe so. This is from my 5 yr old notebook running Windows 8 (obviously no EFI during that time):

Since this machine clearly doesn't have UEFI that partition cannot be an EFI system partition (not to mention that I understand that EFI system partitions must be formatted as FAT32 and not NTFS). Furthermore, I performed a 'Refresh My PC' operation on this notebook once just to play with the feature and it did not ask me to provide the Win8 DVD for the restore operation. Based on this I am of the idea that this partition stores, at least, something that is related to the restore operations offered by Windows 8.

That is the Windows "boot" partition. It's included with Windows 7 as well, but there you get a prompt asking if you want to make one or not (obviously, I always press no, there is no reason for Windows to take a whole partition for booting when I have GRUB doing that instead).

Is it not possible (I don't know how) to add your own signing key to the list of keys that Secure Boot will accept? It adds another stage to the kernel-building process, but it would mean you can keep Secure Boot enabled.

NB: no idea how this works in practice, I don't roll my own kernels or delve into the depths of Secure Boot.

Yes, you can. But it's not worth the effort. Switching the thing off completely makes everything work fine, and if you're mainly using Linux, there is really little point in having it enabled in the first place.

But you are missing one thing: If you have UEFI, you can use GPT...which gives a lot more partitions.

No. You can use GPT, period. It works just fine on BIOS systems as well. I have it set up that way on my HTPC.

Mind you, it will only work on Linux. Apparently MS decided not to allow installing Windows on GPT disks if it's not launched in UEFI mode for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

[Sonadow]

That's the boot partition? Then it's my mistake. Always thought that it was some kind of recovery partition.

[moilami]

I have a friend who have suggested to buy computers without a hard drive.

e.g. you go to the store and buy a laptop, if it's shipping with Windows, then ask to buy the laptop without the hard drive. Explain to the manufacturer that you intend to use Linux and not Windows, and that you don't want to pay the Windows tax.

Buy another hard drive later (SSD or whatever) and install Linux on it.

I haven't tried to do this, but it sounds like a good idea to me, however, I'm not sure this will work, the manufacturer will probably refuse to sell the computer.

What do you guys think? Are you guys willing to try this? I know I will when I buy my next laptop.

7 pages and counting apologists arguing in favor of ?$.

Won't read - have better things to do.

[Vim_User]

7 pages and counting apologists arguing in favor of ?$.

Won't read - have better things to do.

How is providing a workaround arguing in favor of Microsoft?
And how do you know what is written on the 7 pages when you state that you have better things to do than reading them?