Longtime Red Hat Staff: Maybe Just Disable 'Secure Boot'
A refreshing take from Adam Williamson
People who reboot later today or tomorrow might have issues. They might be kept away from their work, their data, their online 'friends' etc.
The effect won't be immediately visible. It depends on how often people reboot (or shut down/power on) their PCs.
The first incident reported online might be like "patient zero", but we don't expect that before Friday or the weekend. The simple fact remains, Linux gurus do expect things to go wrong (virtually nothing been done to mitigate/ameliorate this) as many Microsoft certificates expire. Windows won't be impacted in the same way because it does not use shim. "Microsoft 2011 Secure Boot Certificates expiring starting June 2026."
Microsoft can manage that through Windows Update and dodgy firmware updates (that can destroy SSDs; good luck with that).
But what about GNU/Linux users?
Well, Red Hat's Daniel P. Berrangé spoke about it months ago after Mateus Rodrigues Costa and others had expressed concerns.
Red Hat's firmware guy, whose sites and resources are hosted by Microsoft and funded by Microsoft's 'Linux' Foundation, arrogantly belittled this issue. To quote: "If you're running a 7 year old system firmware then UEFI secure boot certificates are probably quite low on your compliance list."
Notice the word "compliance"; did he wear a suit and tie when he typed that?
Typical IBM/Red Hat. They're the same now, conjoined or immersed as a pair.
Read the above as: We don't want to bother dealing with people who run old machines because they have other issues - greater than this.
At least Adam Williamson, who moved from Mandriva to Red Hat when Mandriva was collapsing, gave an honest advice: "I don't know if this is *worth it* vs just advising people to turn off SB..." (Secure Boot)
I spoke to Williamson in the past. He has long read Techrights.
It is refreshing to see Williamson being honest about this, unlike some colleagues at IBM.
So some people who work for Red Hat dare say, turn off Secure Boot.
Suddenly it's not some 'fringe' view. It never was.
And "if it should be switched off," our associate opines, "then it should not be there in the first place." █