UEFI query

[Miven]

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Does anyone have any experiences, good or bad, with UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) and Linux? The 2200 page spec manual really put me off, but I'm looking to get a new PC soon, so I'm curious.

[NGIB]

I have 1 UEFI box, an HP laptop. I did some experimenting and I was able to boot a Mint USB stick with secure boot turned off and UEFI still active. I took out the Win 8 drive and put in another drive that I put Win 7 and Linux on. Since it's easier I just put it in legacy boot mode. From what I've read, dual booting with Win 8 can be an iffy situation and it just depends on how the hardware vendor has implemented UEFI on their hardware...

[Miven]

Cool. That sounds a lot like what I would do. I'm glad it worked. I'm worried that some units might not so easily be tweaked, and then you've voided the warranty by trying, and stuck with something that won't even run Linux.

[TNFrank]

Some Linux Distros are starting to have support for UEFI but normally you just turn off "Secure Boot" in UEFI and enable "Legacy boot" and Bob's your Uncle.

[Miven]

Some Linux Distros are starting to have support for UEFI but normally you just turn off "Secure Boot" in UEFI and enable "Legacy boot" and Bob's your Uncle.

My Uncle Bob says nasty things about UEFI. But he's a crotchety old guy. He still rolls his own MBRs.

[TNFrank]

My Uncle Bob says nasty things about UEFI. But he's a crotchety old guy. He still rolls his own MBRs.

Your Uncle Bob is a smart man. UEFI was touted as being there to stop virus from messing with Windows but in truth I think it's MicroSoft's way of stopping people from running anything BUT Windows since it makes it a bit harder to get rid of Windows and move to Linux. Either way that are ways around it.

[Miven]

Sounds like you, me, and Uncle Bob think the same way. I'm glad there are ways around it. Hopefully that doesn't change. My 10 year old laptop is due for upgrade soon.

So, basically, it comes down to HD swap and BIOS tweaks? No friendly dual-boot any more? All or nothing? No stolen wifi DLLs or weird proprietary video codecs from system32? Bummer.

To be honest, it sounds like MS is getting scared. The unrelenting glacial movement of Linux shows no sign of stopping and they're seeing it, crystal clear, icebergs and everything. All we need is David Attenborough's narrative, "The Linux Penguin is a hardy species, well suited to life on this barren land..."