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markofmayhem
Why not now?
Premium Member
join:2004-04-08
Pittsburgh, PA

markofmayhem to rexbinary

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to rexbinary

Re: Red Hat users pay up to run Fedora on Windows 8 machines

said by rexbinary:

Thanks for the clarifications.

said by markofmayhem:

Since ya'll are too dumb to turn off the required by Microsoft EFI "BIOS" setting, Fedora is paying $99 for version 18.... one-off payment of $99 (unless I completely read that wrong?)

Turning it off all together is fine if you are only going to run Fedora. Personally I currently dual boot Fedora and Win 7. (I run Win 7 just for gaming.) While I doubt I'll be upgrading to Win 8, if I did have a need to dual boot Fedora and Win 8 I would need to enable the BIOS for secure boot to be able to boot Win 8. So just disabling secure boot might not be an option for everyone.

That is not correct, Win 8 will boot with Secure Boot off (to support the billions of PC's currently working today and those that will be sold over the next 6 months). Secure Boot is not a requirement for the OS to boot, only the certification "sticker" on Intel/AMD x86 platforms.

ARM is very different, but again, the code to not allow Windows 8 to boot with Secure Boot off is not present there either. However, on ARM, the EFI itself has no option to be disabled.

Do not forget, the Samsung tablet with Secure Boot was also used to showcase Microsoft Windows 8's new "dual boot" screen with Windows 7. Secure Boot was disabled to accomplish this at Microsoft's show.

rexbinary
MOD King
Premium Member
join:2005-01-26
Plano, TX
·Frontier FiberOp..

rexbinary

Premium Member

said by markofmayhem:

That is not correct, Win 8 will boot with Secure Boot off (to support the billions of PC's currently working today and those that will be sold over the next 6 months). Secure Boot is not a requirement for the OS to boot, only the certification "sticker" on Intel/AMD x86 platforms.

Gotcha.

markofmayhem
Why not now?
Premium Member
join:2004-04-08
Pittsburgh, PA

markofmayhem

Premium Member

Hopefully it stays this way

Intel's concept of Secure Boot is excellent, they are the fathers of it. The implementation that was rumored to execute it frightened many (single keyring holder). I do believe the outcry and hesitation to embrace it "as is" was warranted. I am sorry to see so much FUD cloud up the subject, but a little fire is needed to gain attention sometimes.

Skepticism will be needed on Secure Boot in the future, the pressure should remain.

firephoto
Truth and reality matters
Premium Member
join:2003-03-18
Brewster, WA

firephoto to markofmayhem

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to markofmayhem
said by markofmayhem:

That is not correct, Win 8 will boot with Secure Boot off (to support the billions of PC's currently working today and those that will be sold over the next 6 months). Secure Boot is not a requirement for the OS to boot, only the certification "sticker" on Intel/AMD x86 platforms.

Kind of related...

So all stickered x86 Win8 hardware will only work in a UEFI secure boot mode with Win 8 or Fedora? and Microsoft holds the key to allowing this to work?

If someone decides to sell some flavor of hardware with Linux installed that has UEFI, does what's needed to provide signed bootloaders for this hardware, then in this case they would be the key holders and nobody else would be allowed to use this hardware in a UEFI secure boot mode without the permission of this Linux vendor?
dave
Premium Member
join:2000-05-04
not in ohio

3 edits

dave

Premium Member

said by firephoto:

So all stickered x86 Win8 hardware will only work in a UEFI secure boot mode with Win 8 or Fedora?

Not the way I understand it.

Stickered x86 Win8 hardware will (a) ship with UEFI secure boot on (b) allow the user to turn secure boot off (c) boot Windows 8 either way.


OK, I think your 'only' was misplaced, causing me to misparse it as "will work with Win8 or Fedora only in UEFI secure mode".

On second thoughts I think you meant "will work in a UEFI secure boot mode only with Win8 or Fedora". Answer, it depends. Other software vendors can also do the same.

firephoto
Truth and reality matters
Premium Member
join:2003-03-18
Brewster, WA

firephoto

Premium Member

Right, I get the impression that part of these rules is to make utilizing the benefits of the secure boot impossible or difficult without the approval of Microsoft. Fedora and Red Hat seem to be putting out the message that this is more about making things easier for the user installing Linux but it seems more likely that they'll get a benefit from being able to lock their installed systems down.