Bonum Certa Men Certa

UEFI Booster Intel Could Not Even Bother Making GNU/Linux Bootable on NUC

Summary: Intel had released Linux-hostile hardware before it finally fixed this

OVER THE PAST week or two there has been a lot of media hype about Intel NUC [1,2] (a lot of it was purely marketing), in part because Linux support was improved [3-5] (it was hard to install GNU/Linux on these machines) and there was a benchmark too [6]. One angle that was scarcely explored in the media should have included the simple question: why did Intel release a Linux-hostile machine in the first place?



Let's expand that question.

Was it not properly tested? Does Intel not care about Linux? Recall how Microsoft fought Linux affinity at Intel.

There's a lot of food for thought here, especially now that Intel wants to impose UEFI on everyone (with security risks). For ethical computing with no surveillance, no back doors, and no monopoly abuse people should avoid everything from Intel (where possible). They should say NUC you to Intel.

Related/contextual items from the news:


  1. Install Fedora on Intel NUC: A Low-Power, x86-Ready Mini PC With Grunt
    The Intel Next Unit of Computing (NUC) is a very compact computer with an Intel CPU at its heart. The NUC reviewed here has mini DisplayPort and mini HDMI ports, two memory slots, mSATA, USB 3.0, mini PCI Express, an IR receiver, and an internal SATA connector among other things.


  2. Intel sees strong growth in its NUC mini-desktop business


  3. New Intel NUC BIOS update fixes Linux installation woes
    The future of the desktop, Intel says, lies in the extremes: enormous tabletop all-in-ones and itty-bitty PCs like the company’s own diminutive Next Unit of Computing. And indeed, we were mighty impressed when we got our hands on Intel’s Core i5-powered NUC, which managed to crack PCWorld’s top products of 2013 despite being a bare-bones system that requires users to BYO RAM, SSD, and OS.


  4. New Intel NUC BIOS update fixes SteamOS, other Linux booting problems
    To recap briefly, UEFI-based systems all have a small partition on their hard drives where bootloader files are stored. These bootloaders, which usually have an .EFI file extension, direct the computer to begin loading the operating system from the drive's main OS partition. The problem with older NUC BIOSes is that they didn't always know where to look for Linux bootloader files. Linux distributions would install to the computer just fine, but by default the computer wouldn't be able to tell that the internal hard drive could boot the system, and you would have to manually move the bootloader file where the computer could find it. The NUC team tells us that further improvements to the boot process are coming, but this update appears to at least fix the problems that we had—Ubuntu, Mint, and SteamOS all install and boot just fine with the latest BIOS update installed.


  5. Intel updates NUC for better Linux support
    While there's plenty to recommend Intel's teeny-tiny NUC desktops, early adopters have been experiencing one or two problems. The biggest show-stopped: a flaw in the BIOS which could prevent Debian-derived Linux distributions from booting correctly, by looking for the wrong bootloader. With Debian one of the longest serving Linux distributions around, and being the parent distribution of everything from Ubuntu Linux to Valve's Steam OS, that wasn't great news - even if the work-around, moving the bootloader, was a relatively speedy fix.


  6. Intel Bay Trail NUC Linux Performance Preview
    A full and proper comparison of the NUC DN2820FYK performance under Linux is forthcoming that will closely examine all areas of performance from Ubuntu 14.04 with the Linux 3.13~3.14 kernel. There will also be many other interesting Bay Trail Linux tests. Those results though are not done today and due to many Phoronix readers asking for some Bay Trail results, I quickly ran some tests this week against the CompuLab Utilite review numbers from the recent review of that nice ARM Linux PC.




Recent Techrights' Posts

Michael “Monty” Widenius: It Started in 1983 With Richard Stallman (RMS)
The other co-founder of MySQL is a bit notorious for confronting RMS rather viciously
For the Second Time in a Few Weeks Microsoft Lunduke Makes False Accusations Against Senior Red Hat Staff to Incite a Despicable 'Troll Army'
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims of says can be trusted
 
Links 03/10/2025: Lawyers Caught Using LLM Slop Explain Why They Did It, LibreSSL 4.1.1 and 4.0.1 Released
Links for the day
FSF Board Grew 50% Since Last Year, Has New President, Turns 40 in Two Days
It's a good move for the FSF and - by extension - for software freedom
Links 03/10/2025: Conflicts, Death of TypePad, and TikTok/CheeTok Gives a Boost to Far Right Groups in Europe
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 02, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 02, 2025
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Google News, and LinuxSecurity
They carry on polluting the Web with fake articles
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: Kubernetes With FreeBSD and robots.txt
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: 'Open' 'AI' Resorting to Gimmicks and Fake Funding, Europe’s ‘Drone Wall’ Discussed
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: Brave Passes 100M Users Milestone, Kodak Selling Its Own Film Again
Links for the day
su lisa && rm -rf /home/ibm/power
Novell was ruined by another person from IBM, Ronald Hovsepian
A Record Demand at Microsoft: Demand to Cancel
What we're witnessing is a very ungraceful destruction of XBox
Microsoft is Losing Europe
Hence all the "support" and "discount" offers that are limited to Europe
The Free Software Foundation Starts Fund-raising for 40th Anniversary
New pop-up 2-3 days ahead of the 40th anniversary event
Systemd Breaks Networking in Debian and Microsoft Staff Rushes to Make Face-Saving Excuses in LWN
Microsoft's bluca is already there in the comments, his Microsoft money pays for LWN to let him leave comments early
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 01, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 01, 2025
What the End of XBox Will Look Like: a Fiery Crash
XBox is the next Skype. It won't last much longer. Expect many more layoffs.
Richard Stallman is Going to Finland to Give a Talk Next Thursday
A day later he speaks in Sweden
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: SMTP Pipelining and End of ROOPHLOCH 2025
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Plagiarism, Fake Articles, and FUD About Linux
not a day goes by without Google News feeding FUD from slopfarms
Gemini Links 01/10/2025: Chat Control and End of Life
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: Long Covid Risk Reiterated, "Bitcoin Queen" Caught
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: EA $55 Billion Deal is Debt and Slop "Raises Vishing Risks"
Links for the day
Bluewashing at Red Hat Means Redundancies
The man who sold Red Hat to IBM meanwhile became a Microsoft Mono booster
After Killing OpenSource.com, IBM ('Red Hat') and OSI Told Us OpenSource.net Would Replace It (But That Didn't Happen)
Now it's time to move on, perhaps tarnishing the "Open Source" label some more (for whatever sponsor wants this)
Linux is Not a Community Project, It's a Wall Street Product
The core goal should be freedom
Bad Actors Abusing the Free Software Community, Vandalising It Using Rogue Politics and Old Tactics
Oil giants have long attempted to do this; now, the digital equivalent of Big Oil does this in technology
Social Control Media Isn't the Future, The Federation or Fediverse Isn't Growing, People's Accounts Vanish for Good
users' accounts will get deleted, not just become inactive
IBM is Failing, This Helps Show Wall Street is Entirely Detached From Actual Commercial Performance
IBM is unable to grow, it's just constantly shrinking
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 30, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 30, 2025
Clerical Aspects of Publishing and Development
In Free software, the management aspects are considerably reduced
Slopwatch: Fake Articles and Google News Promoting "Linux" Spam or Bot-Generated Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD)
These slopfarms help misplace blame
Third Wave of Microsoft Layoffs in September, This Time Many in Liverpool Affected
Be ready for more waves of layoffs ahead of the so-called "results" in late October