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Will Secure Boot Cripple Linux Compatibility?
MojoMax writes "The advent of Windows 8 is drawing ever nearer and recently we have learned that ARM devices installed with Windows 8 will not be able to disable the UEFI secure boot feature that many of us are deeply concerned about. However, UEFI is still a very real danger to Linux and the freedom to use whichever OS you chose. Regardless of information for OEMs to enable customers to install their own keys, such as that published by the Linux Foundation, there are still very serious and as yet unresolved issues with using secure boot and Linux. These issues are best summarized quoting Matthew Garrett: 'Signing the kernel isn't enough. Signed Linux kernels must refuse to load any unsigned kernel modules. Virtualbox on Linux? Dead. Nvidia binary driver on Linux? Dead. All out of tree kernel modules? Utterly, utterly dead. Building an updated driver locally? Not going to happen. That's going to make some people fairly unhappy.'"
Would someone interested in Linux on these particular tablets be able to order one from a vendor with Linux (or no operating system) pre-installed? I couldn't find information on whether or not OEMs are restricted from selling pre-installed Linux versions of the tablet. The SoftwareFreedom website says "any ARM device that ships with Windows 8 will never run another operating system, unless it is signed with a preloaded key or a security exploit is found that enables users to circumvent secure boot." The phrase there is "ships with Windows 8," which suggests to me that Custom Boot-enabled versions could ship without Windows. Admittedly, I have a hard time seeing it as a freedom issue, as these are just tech gadgets at the end of the day. I'd rather it was framed as an inconvenience argument, not a freedom one.
Don't purchase any of these ARM powered devices which run Windows 8.
Oh fuck off.
Reminds me of when drug testing started to take hold in the 1970s - "If you don't want to drug test, you can choose to work at a job where you don't." Except generally, assholism comes with built-in scope creep. Now you can't get a job at Home Depot pushing carts without having machines inspect your personal fluids to determine your off-work behavior. The simply "if you don't like X, then go elsewhere" so-called 'solution' is a fallacy, and always has been. It's a way to avoid a problem; it does not fix anything, or prevent a problem from getting worse.
Another great example - "Don't like crime in this city? Move to another city." Or "Don't like the shitty laws here? Move to another country." {And when the countries of the world unite to form a cartel of shitty laws worldwide -- for instance ACTA -- they will be far harder to fight.}
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
Right now, the ARM architecture equates to tablets and phones for many, maybe most people.
However, a number of companies (Qualcomm, NVIDIA, and others) have announced that they are developing ARM processors to challenge Intel in laptops and desktop systems. Probably they are going with ARM because Intel is being somewhat uncooperative (and maybe anticompetitive) by not letting them have licenses that would allow them to produce x86 compatible systems.
For these companies, having Windows on their ARM systems is vital. However, we shouldn't be short-sighted - restricting the ability for ARM systems to boot anything but Windows will (in the long run) benefit Intel, AMD, Via, etc. as much as it will benefit Microsoft by restricting which operating systems the upcoming ARM based systems can boot. They will either run Windows or they will run everything else, depending on the boot ROM in the system. Guess which most will chose.
Also, whoosh. My point went over your head based on your metaphor that does not represent the situation at all.
A more apt metaphor would be: What if new devices started using proprietary screwdriver bits? Maybe they get a kickback from the screwdriver bit industry, or manufacture the bits themselves to pad their profit (remember the outrage when the iPhone changed its screws?). The "if you don't want that tool, buy another tool" metaphor simply does not work. You cannot use their tool because they have changed it to be less adaptable. People can buy phillips and flathead screwed devices 'til the cow comes home, but there's enough mindless consumers and people that it would not change the bottom line enough for $CORPORATION to change their ways. After another company sees the money they make, they start using proprietary screws too. Eventually, it becomes an industry trend. You can either shell out for the proprietary screwdriver, or use none of these devices. Either way, your unwillingness to go with a bullshit 'feature' does nothing to stop that bullshit from creeping into every device in existence; you merely stuck your head in the sand.
YOU actually come off as the entitled one here, except that you feel entitlement for the faceless corporations that are only interested in your money, rather than for yourself and your own freedom of market choice. You somehow feel that if they were forced to offer something that costs the same to make, but allows people greater freedom, that somehow this affects your livelihood or your "feelings" on what a corporation should be allowed to do. Unless you're a CEO yourself, you're simply loving to learn the taste of the boots you lick. In fact, simply boycotting a product does not make its shitty features go away. And corporations were originally only allowed to continue existing if they served the public good; otherwise they died a mandatory, automatic death sentence. (That is, before those same corporations and their cronies re-wrote the law so that they have more rights than actual people. Privatize profits, socialize losses, no death penalty if you're a corp, and if you're a CEO you can kill someone and not go to jail because you're deemed more important than others.)
I mean, imagine someone saying "if you don't like the fact that airbags can decapitate your baby, then don't get a car with airbags". Do you think that stopped them from coming? Now I am in danger of responding to your bad metaphor with another metaphor, but my point -- which still stands -- is that simply avoiding something you don't like does not make it go away.
It's not a "simple solution". It is neither simple, nor a solution. It is not simple to reduce your freedom of choice, and it is not a solution in any way, shape, or form. A solution solves a problem. The problem still exists. You've done nothing.
"Don't like wars over oil? Then don't buy gas!"
"Don't like abortions? Then don't have one!" (This is a trick example, as I *love* abortions. But to someone who thinks abortions represent a problem {which is not me} -- this 'solution' does not actually solve the 'problem'.)
"Don't like the encroachment of civil liberties in the name of the drug war? Then don't do drugs (alternate: move to another country)."
"Don't like cops tasering people? Then don't mouth off to cops!"
Anyone who thinks this attitude constitutes a solution has a major cognitive logic defect.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
You are comparing Apples(tm) and Windows(tm). What OS does Apple sell? What computer models does Microsoft sell? See the difference?
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
knoppix and other testing / recovery tools also need secure boot.
Does networking booting work with secure boot?
Ghost?
Hard Drive Diagnostics tools (self booting ones)
Dell Diagnostics tools (self booting ones)?
Acronis True Image
clonezilla?
Memtest86+ (better and more to the hardware then the windows memory test tool)
There is alot of stuff some still dos based that is need out side of windows.
You buy a screwdriver and use the handle to pound in nails when they stop making hammers because Microsoft uses their monopoly to drive hammer makers out of the market.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
hell you got choices coming out your asses, so WTF are you bitching for? Vote with your wallet okay? But just because YOU don't like doesn't mean you get to tell ME or anyone else what device we should buy or what features it should have. If I was gonna buy one of these things, which I'm not BTW, I wanna try one of those $70 Android Indian pads the net has been buzzing about, but if I did and was actually gonna use this for real work I'd WANT it locked down, because if its one thing we've seen its that these things are giant targets for the malware guys!
First it's a matter of culture, which does and can effect every one of us. A culture where corporation control what you can or can't do with a computer is a culture detrimental to everyone. Second who has the keys? Locking your stuff up as long as you have a key is not problematic at all. What is is when the key is controlled solely by someone who is willing to sacrifice your interests and goals for the sake of their own.