03.21.15
Gemini version available ♊︎Microsoft Hates Linux – Part I – The UEFI Attack on GNU/Linux
Closing down hardware, blocking GNU/Linux at hardware level
Summary: Microsoft’s highly abusive tactics against GNU/Linux live on in UEFI form, dispelling any myths that someone may still cling onto regarding a ‘reformed’ Microsoft
THIS past month’s stories have yielded plenty of very broad evidence that Microsoft hates GNU/Linux. In this multi-part series we are going to summarise strands of Microsoft’s attacks on GNU/Linux and then conclude with some thoughts.
Our series starts with this new reminder that Microsoft loves Linux like BP loves wind power. It was published yesterday and it says: “Hardware can be Designed for Windows 10 and can offer no way to opt out of the Secure Boot lock down.”
The article, “Windows 10 to make the Secure Boot alt-OS lock out a reality”, was composed by Microsoft’s mouthpiece Peter Bright, so it’s not some alarmed (or alarmist) GNU/Linux user who overstates Microsoft’s abuses. See our previous articles about UEFI ‘secure’ boot. We foresaw these dangers, which are now further amplified even by Microsoft’s own boosters. Here is a newer article titled “Linux’s worst-case scenario: Windows 10 makes Secure Boot mandatory, locks out other operating systems”.
Incidentally, days ago Jamie Watson published [1] a long rant about UEFI, showing how it was making it a nightmare to install GNU/Linux and how Microsoft continues to sabotage dual-boot systems. In 2015 Microsoft cannot keep making excuses about it!
Mr. Nadella is a liar and a fraud. Microsoft does not love GNU/Linux as it evidently continues to attack it. People who still believe that Microsoft loves Linux (because Nadella says so) are either corrupted (e.g. by money) or foolish and some who were corrupted in exchange for saying such stuff will be named in future posts. It has been more like a PR campaign than actual journalism/reporting. █
Related/contextual items from the news:
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Building a pre-release Linux testbed with openSuSE, Fedora, Ubuntu, and more
Panic was starting to creep in, and was pushing the anger level even higher. ‘OK, run gparted and see exactly what Windows has done to me,’ I thought. And…nothing. Empty. The entire hard drive was unallocated space.
Time to rant. Microsoft, I hate you! I hope that each and every one of you is condemned to an endless purgatory of trying to recover corrupted Windows systems!
OK, with that rant out of the way, what to do? The prospect of installing Windows from scratch was unappealing beyond description.
On top of that, even if I got it installed and running again, I would have to go through the fight to get UEFI boot configured to dual-boot Windows and Linux, and that in itself is a basically never-ending struggle because Windows keeps trying to ‘reclaim’ first boot.
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