Bought a laptop and can't boot the LiveCD or LiveUSB?
http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20121126#qa
In a nutshell:
As experience is teaching us, Win8 & "Secure Boot" isn't about security, it is about barriers. Joe and Sally Sixpack might have had trouble using a LiveCD but they could boot it and try with little effort. They most certainly will have trouble even getting it to boot because of "Secure Boot". Without even being able to boot the LiveCD the shims and other work-arounds don't even come into play. As I've always believed, it is all about blocking Linux.
In a nutshell:
In short, to get to the point where we can attempt to boot an alternative operating system we need to know our way through six steps:
To the more technically minded, this might not seem so bad, but keep in mind these steps are performed without documentation, with no hints and with big warning pop-ups letting the user know what a bad idea disabling Secure Boot is. This is not something the average user is going to know how to do, nor will they likely want to follow through if they read the on-screen messages. This is a problem as much of the growth in the Linux community over the past decade has come from the ease of installing mainstream distributions. Distributions like Fedora and Ubuntu have made setting up a fresh install as simple as "Insert CD -> Click Next -> Next -> Next -> Enter a username and password->Next". Computers with Secure Boot remove that ease of use factor by throwing up hidden options, scary warnings and multiple menu items which must be accessed in a specific order before the user can even get to the "Insert CD" part of the installation process. Certainly, system administrators and more experienced users can work around these barriers, but there is a large portion of the public which is relatively inexperienced and willing to try Linux if it is easy to set up. Secure Boot means Linux is no longer simple to install, or even try, from detachable media.
Now, you might be thinking, as I was, that it was foolish of me to purchase a machine with Secure Boot in the first place. After all, I've been warning people about it for long enough I should have been more careful. That was what was going through my mind as I went through the long process of getting my thumb drive to be recognized as a boot device. But then, the next day, I went back to the merchant's website and discovered something. There is no mention of Secure Boot, UEFI or Windows 8 certification anywhere on the page. How is a consumer to know, even if they are aware of the feature, whether a machine is locked down or not? Software freedom requires vigilance and I fear that is more true now than it was a year ago. Be careful when shopping for new computers, it is easy to purchase more trouble than one bargained for.
- Boot machine while pressing F10
- Find Secure Boot in the menu tree, ignore warnings
- Disable Secure Boot feature
- Enable legacy boot options
- Enable specific legacy devices, such as USB devices
- Save and reboot while holding down F9
To the more technically minded, this might not seem so bad, but keep in mind these steps are performed without documentation, with no hints and with big warning pop-ups letting the user know what a bad idea disabling Secure Boot is. This is not something the average user is going to know how to do, nor will they likely want to follow through if they read the on-screen messages. This is a problem as much of the growth in the Linux community over the past decade has come from the ease of installing mainstream distributions. Distributions like Fedora and Ubuntu have made setting up a fresh install as simple as "Insert CD -> Click Next -> Next -> Next -> Enter a username and password->Next". Computers with Secure Boot remove that ease of use factor by throwing up hidden options, scary warnings and multiple menu items which must be accessed in a specific order before the user can even get to the "Insert CD" part of the installation process. Certainly, system administrators and more experienced users can work around these barriers, but there is a large portion of the public which is relatively inexperienced and willing to try Linux if it is easy to set up. Secure Boot means Linux is no longer simple to install, or even try, from detachable media.
Now, you might be thinking, as I was, that it was foolish of me to purchase a machine with Secure Boot in the first place. After all, I've been warning people about it for long enough I should have been more careful. That was what was going through my mind as I went through the long process of getting my thumb drive to be recognized as a boot device. But then, the next day, I went back to the merchant's website and discovered something. There is no mention of Secure Boot, UEFI or Windows 8 certification anywhere on the page. How is a consumer to know, even if they are aware of the feature, whether a machine is locked down or not? Software freedom requires vigilance and I fear that is more true now than it was a year ago. Be careful when shopping for new computers, it is easy to purchase more trouble than one bargained for.