Discussion on:

Hardware neutrality: UEFI strikes again and again

does attempting to boot Linux do to the Samsung laptops?

The Secure Boot doesn't recognize the OS that you are attempting to boot and kills the process as well as the BIOS.

Col

http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Booting-Linux-using-UEFI-can-brick-Samsung-laptops-1793958.html

The article notes that the bricking occurs whether Secure Boot is enabled or not, & that the issue is 100% caused by *Samsung's* driver.

Don't argue reason with these people. Agenda matters more than facts.

That's a rather broad brush you're painting with. Watch out for back-spatter...

It's quite clear the problem is with the Samsung driver yet people on here continue to make the anti-Microsoft argument. Similar to the artricle on TR about the Surface vs iPad free storage space. Facts are facts.

What if vendors explained out right, with a prominent sticker on the computer, that they have made machines for windows only, and then said: "Boot any other OS, and your computer will need physical repairs". Further to explain that the decision to run windows and only windows, removing their choice, has been taken for them.

Further explain that as the computer ages, the usefulness of it will be limited to the latest windows it can run. Explain again, that even if Linux could give them a bit more out of their hardware as a home server or a backup, Linux can't be run at all.

How much market would they loose? For sure, they would loose me without hesitation. But how many people would be offended/disturbed that their right to do with their hardware as they please is taken away by careless manufacturers? How many windows users will care to choose manufacturers that respect their clients property rights on their computer, and give them the ability to choose their OS?

All-in-one full stack solutions are all the rage (exadata, etc) in the datacenter. It seems obvious that OEMs would want to enjoy the same vendor lock on the desktop.

I just thought about this. What about all those Linux based rescue disks out there, or even partition magic? Can't use those...

Great point. I am used to throwing a Linux liveCD into a crudded-up windows box to retrieve files. I have to think twice now.

I'm going to start scouring for a source of info on which hardware is safe to run Linux on. If there isn't a one-stop source, there's a good idea for a web developer. You'd get a lot of hits from a very specific market niche

I'm a computer consultant, and when I have a client machine that is so crudded up that it runs like a snail, I throw in Puppy Linux on a CD or USB, or a Rescue Disc and boot from it to do the initial cleanup.

Just imagine the financial liability and loss of reputation if I did that in the future and the customer's computer became a brick!!!!

It would be nice, if just ONCE, you spelled out what the acronym stands for. It's not like these articles really cater to the ultra hard core so why don't you make it easier for casual readers to understand what you're writing about?

Google is working again.

... Minesweeper Consultants and Solitaire Experts.

Just sayin....

By the way....

GOOGLE IS YOUR FRIEND.

have a point, proper writing technique (at least how I learned it) states that you spell out an acronym the first time it's used. Yes, most of us know what most of the acronyms used in the IT world mean, but there are so many. I don't know about you, but I do get tired of going to Google several times while reading an article. It disrupts the flow. You have a valid complaint.

With a name like Super_MCSE though, I would think you would know what it means. :=)

If they really wanted to help, they could have used this link: http://lmgtfy.com/.

C'mon, mudpuppy1 - What does IT stand for?

Sorry, guess I should take my own advice. Oh well, I never claimed to be perfect. Thanks for pointing that goof out. IT=Information Technology.

Slinking away, hanging head.......

Thanks for the heads up.

Bought a very high end $2000+ Dell a year ago that failed after 30 days. Called in the problem and Dell wouldn't send a support technician to my location (despite my having a 3 year next business day onsite warranty) because... they couldn't locate a replacement 1080p panel for the machine. This went on for 30+ days before they finally shipped me a new notebook. At one point I was told by a frustrated support technician (after he told me that they actually couldn't locate the panel in Dell's worldwide inventory) that their accountants told him not to provide any more support because it was getting too expensive. Eventually the machine was replaced and I no longer purchase Duh'hell notebooks.

Bad for Samsung for buying into Microsoft's UEFI Secure Boot bunk. Good for Samsung for supporting their clients. Based on the above story, I'd be more inclined to trust Samsung than I'd ever trust Dell.

This UEFI stuff scared the crap out of me.

My current pc having gotten to ~4.5 yrs of age,
i figured its probably a good time to get a new one, and
i probably ought to do it soon before
non UEFI mobos are no longer available.

I went to my local chinese pc store and requested a non UEFI mobo and
the rest of the stuff to build up a pc.
He looked at me weird til i explained that i run Linux exclusively.
Then he looked at me even weirder.

Not wanting to lose a sale, he agreed to research it and
got back to me with a non UEFI ASUS mobo and
an AMD quad core.
So far, its booting Ubu and running w/o a hickup.

Got to upgrade now, else
the next few years are going to be a horrendous mess,
til this gets ironed out and / or M$ bites the dust.
Preferably the latter!

However some of it is supposed to speed up the boot process, so maybe parts of it could be kept. Anyways, my experience with a Lenovo z580 lappie was that i had no trouble running win7 and ubuntu side by side, but reading the experiences of others that may have been to do with the fact that i wiped out the HDD first, then installed win7 from a USB stick, and then installed ubuntu from a stick too. Apparently going that route vs installing from optical media makes a difference here, had something to do with the file system used in each case. Google it if you must.

As they say the devil is in the details. Secure boot is an extension of the UEFI. UEFI basically replaces the aging BIOS with updated framework. I boot my home and work computers using a UEFI (Gigabyte) Motherboard and it works great. The Secure Boot farce on the other hand is the "Devil" in the details. If you get hardware with Secure Boot enabled then you can only run "Signed" boot loaders. Windows being the 500 pound gorilla has already pushed their signing keys to the hardware manufacturers. Linux has some projects that are doing the same with a signed grub bootloader. Time will tell, but the take away is look at the hardware you purchase to see if it meets your needs. The big vendors like Dell are only concerned with their bottom lines. They buy the cheapest Chinese motherboards and parts so you don't know what is truely compatible with which OS. If you can build your own or buy from a trusted vendor who puts in higher quality parts. Its worth the extra money to do so.

If anyone here does any kind of system building, the best thing to do, first: try to find mob's that don't have the UEFI garbage in it....if that don't work, second: go to places like ebay and find your particular parts there and build your system that way. This is how I've built all my systems, including 2 Dell Latitude D series laptops....this is how you can avoid having to have Windows on your computer(s). The Motherbord manufactures need to know, that we won't be bullied into just using Windows or any certain type of mobo...we have a voice, and they need to know

I'm in the planning stages for a DIY upgrade of my Windows game machine. The first criteria I have for the motherboard is "No UEFI". If a company wants to sell me a motherboard, they will not have that crap on it...period. "Disable" is not an option. I refuse to participate in (more) vendor lock-in, especially with MS.

I'd like to know if Toshiba and Lenovo Think Pads are making their laptops OS neutral. I plan to get a ThinkPad soon, but I'm not going to get it if installing linux burns the motherboard. I'll let them know about it too.

Non-Linux using purchasers of UEFI products (why not phones, too) aren't going to be educated as to what the fallout of owning these devices is for them until Microsoft is being prosecuted as a monopoly again. That's when articles like this one will be highlighted in the news: years from now.

How hard is it to brick every dominated piece of hardware in the shops? (before it is sold)

Just for the fun of it... :-D

It's not vandalism, the hardware will not be damaged in any way. It only 'bricks itself by design'. It's a feature not a failure.... Once they see the feature fails, then they might fix it...
See as helping them to make them aware of this mistake.

is it anyhow ? ?
I deeply resent Microsoft dictating to hardware manufacturers to make their machines run only Microsoft Operating Systems.
I sense the smell of an antitrust case in the works.
Just sayin' .................

uses one Linux distro or another to diagnose problems with them. I do it myself, its the quickest way of finding out whether the hardware is broken or Windows has got its knickers in a twist.

One thing thats certain to happen, take your computer to a shop for repair and you will be charged for the extra time and effort it takes. Not to mention the hair-raising liability issues the shop faces, or the expense of keeping themselves certified, licensed and educated.

I'm just going to have to keep my fingers crossed UEFI and particularly Secure Boot annoys enough of the industry to kill it before it gets worse. Thankfully there will always be ARM, with RPi and dozens of 'micro pc' boards popping up it could well be irrelevant in a couple of years anyway.

Read up on what UEFI is. UEFI is not inherently bad, it is a much needed replacement for the decades old slow and crufty BIOS. Basically all my computers have UEFI and they run Linux just fine -- and boot much faster.

Yes, UEFI is actually quite nice. It's not the fault of UEFI that Samsung's hardware programmers suck at what they do and can't produce a motherboard that can boot anything other than Windows.

That said, Secure Boot, on the other hand, is total ****.

Per this article from Matthew Garret:
http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/22855.html
He bricked a Samsung FROM WINDOZE!

may be the have a open mind and share with us

No need to say any more...

that UEFI goes the way of Microchannel. Sure, PCs need an updated BIOS architecture, but it sounds like UEFI is pissing off enough of the industry that the architecture's designers need to go a more system neutral route.