Bonum Certa Men Certa

Man With Plenty of UEFI Experience Struggles to Disable Restricted Boot to Install and Run GNU/Linux

Monopoly



Summary: Another story about the pains of restricted boot and why it matters a lot right now

TECHRIGHTS is actively and ferociously against UEFI for various reasons including security (bad security), patents, and anti-competitive aspects. The technical merits (positives) of UEFI are outweighed by the negatives and for most people there are no positives at all because they don't access servers directly. They don't need to worry about remote booting and other such advanced features, which are commonly needed when one runs Windows (it gets sort of jammed or refuses to shut down).



There is this new article from Jamie, the UEFI explorer (whom UEFI Forum approached to appease). "My UEFI experience so far has been limited to only two laptop OEMs," he explains, "HP/Compaq and Acer. I found the former to be relatively difficult to work with (see the recent Compaq and earlier HP Pavilion posts), but the latter to be reasonably easy (see Aspire One 725 post), especially after installing the latest BIOS updates."

When it comes to ASUS, see just what he is having to go through: "I tried a variety of them, including Esc, F9, F10 and F12, all to no avail. I checked the BIOS configuration (at least that was on F2) to see if there was something I needed to enable there to get Boot Select, ala the Acer Aspire One, but I didn't find anything like that.

"However, in the process of getting into the BIOS setup I did notice that the ASUS POST sequence seems very quick, so there is really a very small time slot in which you can press F2 before it is too late, and you are doomed to boot Windows and then shut down and try again.

"Armed with this knowledge, I tried again to get into Boot Select and this time found that if I was fast enough, Esc would get me there.

"Also while blundering around in the BIOS setup I saw that there is an option to Enable/Disable Secure Boot, but I did not see anything about Legacy Boot there: I wonder if this system doesn't support Legacy Boot."

This would be enough to discourage the majority of people from even exploring GNU/Linux. They would essentially give up on it without really trying it. They would blame "Linux".

Now that some large companies migrate their computers from Windows XP to GNU/Linux (I know of a few who don't publicly announce it) the issue is very sensitive. It is bad enough that some media monopolies and oligopolies make life miserable for GNU/Linux users (see new examples in [1]), we don't need hardware and software companies doing the same (Intel and Microsoft for the most part). People want to move away from Windows (many options exist [2]) and if we don't pursue this at antitrust level, then computing will enter a dark age, like that of DRM. It's wasteful and unfair.

Related/contextual items from the news:
  1. Time Warner’s Live Chat Doesn’t Speak Linux
    I know for an absolute fact that Time Warner’s backbone is made up of Linux and Unix servers. And they want to tell me that I need a Windows system to access their online chat support?


  2. Lubuntu might be the best Linux distro for Windows XP users
    Microsoft will soon end official support for Windows XP, and OMG! Ubuntu! thinks that Lubuntu could be the perfect replacement. Lubuntu is a lightweight spin of Ubuntu that provides a more traditional desktop environment and might work well for Windows XP users.


Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Jamie Zawinski Complained About Wayland, Then Decided to Give It a Go, Now Complains Again About Wayland
Ask IBM (Red Hat) why it's worth throwing so much away just for Wayland fanaticism
Russia Set to Ban Facebook?
If WhatsApp is made to "leave", that means Facebook or "Meta".
Taking Stock of a Good and Productive Week
We shall now be taking a break, unpacking the new hard drive (8 TB), and making backups of everything
Ageism in Tech
Your protocol is "old"...
 
Our Articles About SLAPPs Receive Recognition and Interest
This week we shall continue writing about the 3 lawsuits we filed
Are You Served?
For many people, advocacy of Free software and GPL enforcement are assumed to be happening
Conspiracy or grooming? Alex Jurado, Voice of Reason compared to Outreachy
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 20/07/2025: Security Breaches and Former 'Open' 'AI' Engineer on Hype and Culture Issues
Links for the day
Links 20/07/2025: Fending Off BRICS and US Government Attacks Its Own Media (Like China and Russia)
Links for the day
Framed by social control media: Alex Belfield, Voice of Reason
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 20/07/2025: Summertime and OCC25 Wrap-up
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Planet Ubuntu, LinuxSecurity, and More
former "Linux" blogs which basically became slopfarms
Links 20/07/2025: More GAFAM Lawsuits, Layoffs, and SLAPPs
Links for the day
Nice Recovery (From Actual Fire) by PCLinuxOS, New Version of PCLinuxOS Released, Now Top of DistoWatch
PCLinuxOS is a community-driven distro
More Microsoft Shutdowns That Mostly Slipped Under the Radar
Remember what happened to books 'sold' by Microsoft?
Microsoft Lunduke Still Fighting Cancel Culture With... Cancel Culture
There will be no "winners" in such 'debates'
The History of Daily Links and Politics
"I support Wayland, but I also support abortion..."
Microsoft is at 0% "Market Share" in Most Areas
Depending on the taxonomy chosen, there may be dozens of categories other than desktops and laptops
"The moment MSFT stock fails to start tumbling, that’s the beginning of another corporate giant going under."
There are far more layoffs at Microsoft than at Intel, but you would not get this impression based on Wall Street media
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 19, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, July 19, 2025
Gemini Links 19/07/2025: Git For Authors and Filtered Antenna
Links for the day
UEFI 'Secure' Boot Abuses by Microsoft to be Brought Up in the UK High Court in 3 Months
we'll seek compensation
Next Year It'll Be Half a Decade Since the Fall of Freenode (and IRC is Still Doing OK)
Our IRC network is still accessible using the exact same software that ran in Windows 3.x
Lupa Will Soon Know of 3,100+ Active Gemini Capsules
And some people in the "Small Web" try to tell us that Gemini is dying?
The Slopfarms Are Taking Real News Articles and Replacing Them With Lies Generated by Machines
Bluntly speaking, Fagioli is nothing short of an online scammer
Links 19/07/2025: Techtarget to Cull 10% of Staff, New Threats to Free Press in the US (Home of Dangerous and Violent Stranglers From Microsoft)
Links for the day
Gemini Links 19/07/2025: "Climate Justice” and Forking Programs
Links for the day
What Wayland and Microsoft/IBM systemd Have in Common
focus on what IBM (Red Hat) is pushing while running over critics.
Linux Already Has About 60% of the "Market"
"When mentioning the client side," opines an associate, "it is essential to recite the list of other markets where Microsoft is negligible or a no-show. It is repetitive to do so, but it needs saying -- often."
In Norway, Android/Linux Has Just Hit All-Time High (First Time Since 2020), GNU/Linux Already Very Prevalent
Despite its small population size, Norway gave us Qt and many other things
Finland (and NATO) Must Move to GNU/Linux and Dump Microsoft Even Faster
"Microsoft is not a technology problem, it is a staffing problem."
Microsoft's Mass Layoffs Very Wide-Ranging, Media Focused on Gaming Though Microsoft Mass-Firing Lawyers and "AI" Staff (Contradicting Its Supposed "Investment" in "AI")
Microsoft plans to fire almost half a thousand people in legal roles
2012 Article About the Free Software Foundation Blasting Canonical/Ubuntu Over Adoption of "Secure" Boot (Microsoft's Remote Control Over GNU/Linux Since PCs' Power-on)
By Katherine Noyes (article has since then became 404, not found)
The Microsofters We Sued Helped Microsoft Make GNU/Linux 'Expire' This Year
"Linux and Secure Boot certificate expiration"
linuxconfig.org Joins linuxtechlab.com and Others, Becomes a Slopfarm With Fake Linux 'Articles' (LLM Slop)
They contain "linux" in their domain names, but they are just slopfarms
Links 19/07/2025: Microsoft Cuts in China and Wall Street Journal Sued for Reporting on Jeffrey Epstein
Links for the day
Debian Can Dump Blind Users Because I am Not Blind
the sort of mentality we're up against
Fascistic Policies Got 'Normalised' in 'Public Office'. Let's Not Let the Same Happen in 'Tech'.
Political discourse typically guides what's "normal" and what "good citizens" should believe/feel
The European Patent Office Cannot Attract Proficient Patent Examiners Who Master Their Domain
They are enablers and facilitators of corruption
Yes, Your Mastodon Instance Will Also Shut Down
Few people run a one-person instance in the Fediverse
The Demise of GAFAM Necessitates Greater and Broader Awareness
Morale at Microsoft is really bad
Free Software Foundation Reaches 75% of Funding Goal
Not bad for this "Fosschild"
Slopwatch: 7 New Examples of Fake 'Linux' Slop Pieces (Plagiarism With Misinformation)
Serial Sloppers need to be shunned
Links 19/07/2025: Kapo-berg Settles, Software Patents Challenged
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 18, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, July 18, 2025