Linux Foundation solves UEFI boot?

[Frank616]

Freeing the way for independent Linux distributions to be installed on Windows 8 computers, the Linux Foundation has released software that will allow Linux to work with computers running the UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) firmware.

Story here.

Do you see this as the end of the 'war'?

Frank.

[Detonate]

Back when the first posts started appearing on Linux forums about UEFI and Secure Boot, I knew that there would be people hard at work to solve this problem, and I had confidence they would succeed. There seemed to be an attitude of doom surrounding this, but I took a wait and see attitude because I knew the Linux community would come up with solutions. And this is certainly a step in the right direction. This, I know, that there will come a time soon, where you will be able slap a CD in the drive and install your favorite distribution just as you always have.

[dibl]

Thanks Frank! I built my desktop rig in late 2010, just in time to avoid having to deal with UEFI. It looks like it will soon be safe to build my next one (although this one is still performing great).

[Detonate]

If you are building your own computer, this should not be an issue, it will only be an issue if your are trying to install on a computer that came with Windows preinstalled.

[dmeyer]

An openSUSE developer came up with a working solution for all well before the Linux Foundation.

[woodsmoke]

Thanks for the article Frank.

Two items which I find of particular note are:

certain Samsung laptops running Windows 8 could permanently stop working due to a bug in how the Samsung firmware stores system crash data in the UEFI storage space.

And THEN this rather strangely constructed sentence:

"We have in place a protocol where Microsoft is >>>happy<<< for us to hand off from the initial Microsoft signed EFI binary load to a separately verified EFI binary chain,..."

Are there any among the cognoscenti who would care to elucidate?

woodwonderin'smoke

[Frank616]

dmeyer:

An openSUSE developer came up with a working solution for all well before the Linux Foundation.

My understanding is that said developer worked with the Linux Foundation on this offering, and that they may well merge the two.

Frank.

[dmeyer]

dmeyer:



My understanding is that said developer worked with the Linux Foundation on this offering, and that they may well merge the two.

Frank.

That's very much possible. I just remember his solution involved him personally getting a key and writing his own shim etc. His solution came out quite a few weeks before the Linux Foundation so I didn't link the two for that reason.