TECHRIGHTS has been a rather prominent longtime critic of UEFI. We even got invited to speak to the top executives behind UEFI, involving several people on a conference call. They were hoping to silence/suppress my criticism by speaking to me for about an hour, but they didn’t have anything substantial to say in order for me to change my mind. In fact, they only revealed other issues (throughout the conversation) which I later wrote about. The Wiki has plenty of details about that and it also covers examples or remote bricking of PCs (via UEFI). Truly nasty if not malicious, too.

“Stuff like UEFI also gives governments stricter controls over people (like dissidents).”There is a newly-discovered issue involving systemd and EFI/UEFI. This has shown up in several prominent online forums and also in bug reports for almost a week (or longer). I had mentioned it online for a while, but only earlier today did I decide I have enough of a confirmation regarding this severe problem. It is now mentioned in news sites, too [1,2,3], so I wanted to very quickly remark on it (due to lack of time), noting that here again we have an example of remote bricking by means of UEFI — a subject that the NSA previously warned about (accusing China, warning that it had attempted to do something similar).

Don’t accept UEFI. Like DRM, TPM and many other malicious ‘features’, it is intended to give corporations control over the users, rather than enable the users to control their computers better. Stuff like UEFI also gives governments stricter controls over people (like dissidents). █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. In A UEFI World, “rm -rf /” Can Brick Your System

   Running rm -rf / on any UEFI Linux distribution can potentially perma-brick your system.

   As a public service announcement, recursively removing all of your files from / is no longer recommended. On UEFI distributions by default where EFI variables are accessible via /sys, this can now mean trashing your UEFI implementation.

2. Running a single delete command in Linux can permanently brick some laptops

   It’s fairly stupid to run such a command, but usually not destructive to anything but the Linux installation. However, as it turns out, on MSI laptops it’s possible to completely wipe the EFI boot partition from inside Linux.

3. Running “rm -rf /” Is Now Bricking UEFI Based Linux Systems

   Running rm -rf / on any UEFI Linux distro can potentially perma-brick your system, Windows PCs also vulnerable

“I’m thinking of hitting the OEMs harder than in the past with anti-Linux. … they should do a delicate dance”

–Joachim Kempin, Microsoft OEM Chief

Summary: After scheming to make new hardware incapable of booting GNU/Linux (in the name of UEFI ‘security) the company now attempts to tie up hardware (processors) with malicious new malware called Windows 10 (more like Vista 10, with the user-hostile ‘features’ of Vista)

“Want Freedom To Choose Your Hardware? Choose GNU/Linux.”

That’s the message from Robert Pogson. Some days ago we became aware of a nasty little scheme from Microsoft. The abusive monopolist, Microsoft, is calling monopoly abuse “innovation”. In additional to more DRM and antifeatures, including mass surveillance in real time, the company goes further as “Upcoming Intel And AMD CPUs Will ONLY Support Windows 10,” to quote FOSS Bytes. “In the latest change to its update policy,” wrote the author, “Microsoft has announced that older versions of Windows like Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 will lose support on the Intel 6th generation Core processors, also known as Intel Skylake. So, if you have just bought a new PC, you should consider upgrading to Windows 10 within the next 18 months.”

“Does anyone really think there is a ‘new’ Microsoft which is benevolent?”And Microsoft later expresses shock that people generally dislike it, some more than others.

Microsoft Peter shows how, after UEFI lockout of GNU/Linux (which he wrote about last year, arguably breaking the news), the historically abusive Intel helps Microsoft impose NSA-friendly spyware on everyone. “Microsoft Will Not Support Upcoming Processors Except On Windows 10,” says another report and “New hardware must have the latest Windows,” wrote a Microsoft booster. Microsoft’s influence over OEMs may be diminishing, the development teams may be shrinking (based on our confidential sources they are!), so the company is now limiting the scope of its operating system using hardware manufacturers/chipmakers, i.e. doing exactly the opposite of Linux (whose hardware support is always broadening).

Moreover, as revealed by this new report from The Register, Microsoft is really trying to piss people off and make Vista 10 synonymous with malware. Watch what they are doing right now:

Microsoft’s relentless campaign to push Windows 10 onto every PC on the planet knows no bounds: now business desktops will be nagged to upgrade.

When Redmond started quietly installing Windows 10 on computers via Windows Update, it was aimed at getting home users off Windows 7 and 8. If you were using Windows Pro or Enterprise, or managed your machines using a domain, you weren’t supposed to be pestered with dialog boxes offering the free upgrade.

[...]

Microsoft claims it’s doing this because many small businesses – the sort of organizations that run Windows Pro, use a domain, but leave automatic updates on – want an easy way to install the new operating system. If companies really want this software, you’d think they’d install it themselves – or opt in for it, rather than having to opt out repeatedly.

You can try your luck following these instructions to halt the upgrade – until Microsoft changes the rules again. Windows Enterprise edition in large corporations will avoid the automatic, virtually mandatory, upgrade.

Does anyone really think there is a ‘new’ Microsoft which is benevolent? iophk has been writing to us for a number of days about this kind of topic. He said quite a lot of things about what Microsoft plans to do to R right now (or some time in the near future).

“Attacks against R continue with “Microsoft R Open {sic}”,” he said, “with the announcement of vaporware” (we wrote about this some days ago). █

“Stewart Alsop, industry gadfly, presented Gates with the “Golden Vaporware” award, saying, “The delay of Windows was all part of a secret plan to have Bill turn thirty before it shipped.”

–Barbarians Led by Bill Gates, a book composed
by the daughter of Microsoft’s PR mogul

Summary: Warning signs over Microsoft hosting, as well as reliance on Microsoft for maintenance of hardware

THE lying, dishonest and corrupt company says that it “loves Linux”. How ridiculous a statement. Microsoft clearly targets dumb people who are willing to give Microsoft control over GNU/Linux instances. Will Microsoft find enough dumb people? It remains to be seen. As a famous saying goes, never underestimate the power of dumb people in large numbers.

Yet another British ‘cloud’ site now promotes/advertises Microsoft as a GNU/Linux host. The article (if it can be called that), essentially an advertisement from Clare Hopping, says that “Azure customer support for Linux and other open source technologies were focused on determining whether customer problems were with the Azure platform or not. If not, then it would be left to the developer or the third party platform to solve issues.”

“Microsoft recently left British members of Parliament without access to E-mail for several days.”Is this the kind of host people were really looking for? There are many fine GNU/Linux hosts and Microsoft cares about GNU/Linux like BP cares about turtles in the Gulf of Mexico. Embrace (devour), extend (stab), extinguish (swallow) is what this move from Microsoft is all about. Watch a Microsoft advocacy site (the “Windows Club”) promoting this utter nonsense which includes full surveillance on every file (Microsoft uses “child pornography” as an excuse for this).

People ought to know by now never to rely on Microsoft for anything at all. Microsoft gained traction not because of technical merit; bribery, blackmail etc. had a lot more to do with it. It’s a company of organised crime and collusion with covert agencies that break the law, too.

According to this report, many people are still pursuing compensation for damages caused by the horrible Xbox 360 console. “No matter how hard Microsoft tries,” explained the author, “it can’t defeat a judicial order requiring it to face a proposed class-action lawsuit claiming that the Xbox 360 renders gaming discs unplayable because the console scratches them.

“The decision (PDF) Monday by the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals sets the stage either for litigation over the allegations or a Supreme Court showdown.”

Microsoft, of course, is trying to dodge responsibility. Does anyone consider such a company to be a reliable host? Microsoft recently left British members of Parliament without access to E-mail for several days. Prior to that Microsoft had blackmailed British politicians. Microsoft cannot even fix their E-mail hosting (time-critical) in less than 3 days! If this is how Microsoft treats British members of Parliament, why would it do any better for ordinary members of the public? █

Summary: The insecurity and abundant complexity/extensibility of UEFI is already exploited by crackers who are serving corrupt regimes and international empires

TECHRIGHTS has spent many years writing about dangers of Microsoft back doors and about 3 years writing about UEFI which, according to various citations we gathered, enables governments to remotely brick (at hardware level) computers at any foreign country, in bulk! This is a massive national security threat and Germany was notable in reacting to it (forbidding the practice). Among our posts which cover this:

• NSA Confirms Remote Computer Bricking by BIOS (or UEFI) as a Real Strategy
• UEFI is Bricking Computers When One Removes Spyware With Back Doors (Microsoft Windows)
• If You Use Microsoft Windows, the NSA Can Brick Your Computer Hardware Remotely
• Windows Vista 8.1, or Windows ‘Brick Edition’, Shows That UEFI is Malicious, Opposite of ‘Secure’
• Ignore the Spin: Microsoft’s UEFI Programme Still Bricking Laptops
• Why Samsung Hardware With UEFI Boot Gets Bricked by Linux
• UEFI ‘Secure’ Boot is Not About Security, Insyde Software’s Business Model is Misguided and Dangerous
• Microsoft’s Anticompetitive Attack on GNU/Linux Booting is Bricking Laptops
• UEFI Restricted Boot No Longer Valid for Security, Keys Leaked
• UEFI Restricted Boot Good for Microsoft Agenda, Not for Security
• Microsoft Can’t Understand Security (Lesson for UEFI Apologists)
• UEFI Apologists Versus Germany’s Government Judgment on UEFI Insecurity
• Red Hat Fails to Convince That UEFI is Tolerable, Uses ‘Security’ as Talking Point

Today we learn that UEFI firmware updates spread to the most widely used GNU/Linux desktop distribution and yesterday we learned that “HackingTeam has code for UEFI module for BIOS persistency of RCS 9 agent (i.e. survives even HD replace)…”

Rik Ferguso wrote this with link to the PowerPoint presentation, pointing to leaked E-mails via Wikileaks. The push back against UEFI ought to be empowered by such revelations, perhaps in the same way that these leaks now threaten to kill Adobe Flash for good. █

THE abusive Intel spreads UEFI to help the abusive Microsoft by means of lockout (there have been many articles about that as of late). It serves to protect the Windows monopoly and protect Intel’s monopoly (with UEFI patents that we highlighted previously). Our posts about UEFI contain a lot of examples of that. UEFI ‘secure’ boot is not really about security and in some ways it makes security even worse, as we showed on numerous occasions before. UEFI can enable espionage agencies (such as GCHQ, NSA and so on) to remotely brick PCs, rendering them unbootable (no matter the operating system). Remember Stuxnet.

There are several new reports which say that UEFI has got additional ways in which it makes computers less secure. To quote the British media: “The high amount of code reuse across UEFI BIOSes means that BIOS infection can be automatic and reliable.”

To quote some US media: “Though such “voodoo” hacking will likely remain a tool in the arsenal of intelligence and military agencies, it’s getting easier, Kallenberg and Kovah believe. This is in part due to the widespread adoption of UEFI, a framework that makes it easier for the vendors along the manufacturing chain to add modules and tinker with the code.”

Next time Intel or Microsoft insist that UEFI is needed for ‘security’ we should have stronger arguments with which to debunk such myths. It’s marketing of monopolies disguised as “advancement”. █

Free software is a matter of freedom, not price; broadly speaking, it means that users are free to use the software and to copy and redistribute the software, with or without changes. More precisely, the definition is formulated in terms of the four essential freedoms.

• The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose.
• The freedom to study the program’s source code, and change it so it does your computing as you wish.
• The freedom to make exact copies and give them or sell them to others.
• The freedom to make copies of your modified versions and give them or sell them to others.

Applying the same concept directly to hardware, free hardware means hardware that you are free to use and to copy and redistribute with or without changes. But, since there are no copiers for hardware, aside from keys, DNA, and plastic objects’ exterior shapes, is the concept of free hardware even possible? Well, most hardware is made by fabrication from some sort of design. The design comes before the hardware.

Thus, the concept we really need is that of a free hardware design. That’s simple: it means a design that permits users to use the design (i.e., fabricate hardware from it) and to copy and redistribute it, with or without changes. The design must provide the same four freedoms that define free software. Then “free hardware” means hardware with an available free design.

People first encountering the idea of free software often think it means you can get a copy gratis. Many free programs are available for zero price, since it costs you nothing to download your own copy, but that’s not what “free” means here. (In fact, some spyware programs such as Flash Player and Angry Birds are gratis although they are not free.) Saying “libre” along with “free” helps clarify the point.

For hardware, this confusion tends to go in the other direction; hardware costs money to produce, so commercially made hardware won’t be gratis (unless it is a loss-leader or a tie-in), but that does not prevent its design from being free/libre. Things you make in your own 3D printer can be quite cheap, but not exactly gratis since you will have to pay for the raw materials. In ethical terms, the freedom issue trumps the price issue totally, since a device that denies freedom to its users is worth less than nothing.

The terms “open hardware” and “open source hardware” are used by some with the same concrete meaning as “free hardware,” but those terms downplay freedom as an issue. They were derived from the term “open source software,” which refers more or less to free software but without talking about freedom or presenting the issue as a matter of right or wrong. To underline the importance of freedom, we make a point of referring to freedom whenever it is pertinent; since “open” fails to do that, let’s not substitute it for “free”.

Is Nonfree Hardware an Injustice?

Ethically, software must be free; a nonfree program is an injustice. Should we take the same view for hardware designs?

We certainly should, in the fields that 3D printing (or, more generally, any sort of personal fabrication) can handle. Printer patterns to make a useful, practical object (i.e., functional rather than decorative) must be free because they are works made for practical use. Users deserve control over these works, just as they deserve control over the software they use.

Distributing a nonfree functional object design is as wrong as distributing a nonfree program.

Be careful to choose 3D printers that work with exclusively free software; the Free Software Foundation endorses such printers. Some 3D printers are made from free hardware designs, but Makerbot’s hardware designs are nonfree.

Must we reject nonfree digital hardware?

Is a nonfree digital hardware(*) design an injustice? Must we, for our freedom’s sake, reject all digital hardware made from nonfree designs, as we must reject nonfree software?

Due to the conceptual parallel between hardware designs and software source code, many hardware hackers are quick to condemn nonfree hardware designs just like nonfree software. I disagree because the circumstances for hardware and software are different.

Present-day chip and board fabrication technology resembles the printing press: it lends itself to mass production in a factory. It is more like copying books in 1950 than like copying software today.

Freedom to copy and change software is an ethical imperative because those activities are feasible for those who use software: the equipment that enables you to use the software (a computer) is also sufficient to copy and change it. Today’s mobile computers are too weak to be good for this, but anyone can find a computer that’s powerful enough.

Moreover, a computer suffices to download and run a version changed by someone else who knows how, even if you are not a programmer. Indeed, nonprogrammers download software and run it every day. This is why free software makes a real difference to nonprogrammers.

How much of this applies to hardware? Not everyone who can use digital hardware knows how to change a circuit design, or a chip design, but anyone who has a PC has the equipment needed to do so. Thus far, hardware is parallel to software, but next comes the big difference.

You can’t build and run a circuit design or a chip design in your computer. Constructing a big circuit is a lot of painstaking work, and that’s once you have the circuit board. Fabricating a chip is not feasible for individuals today; only mass production can make them cheap enough. With today’s hardware technology, users can’t download and run John H Hacker’s modified version of a digital hardware design, as they could run John S Hacker’s modified version of a program. Thus, the four freedoms don’t give users today collective control over a hardware design as they give users collective control over a program. That’s where the reasoning showing that all software must be free fails to apply to today’s hardware technology.

In 1983 there was no free operating system, but it was clear that if we had one, we could immediately use it and get software freedom. All that was missing was the code for one.

In 2014, if we had a free design for a CPU chip suitable for a PC, mass-produced chips made from that design would not give us the same freedom in the hardware domain. If we’re going to buy a product mass produced in a factory, this dependence on the factory causes most of the same problems as a nonfree design. For free designs to give us hardware freedom, we need future fabrication technology.

We can envision a future in which our personal fabricators can make chips, and our robots can assemble and solder them together with transformers, switches, keys, displays, fans and so on. In that future we will all make our own computers (and fabricators and robots), and we will all be able to take advantage of modified designs made by those who know hardware. The arguments for rejecting nonfree software will then apply to nonfree hardware designs too.

That future is years away, at least. In the meantime, there is no need to reject hardware with nonfree designs on principle.

*As used here, “digital hardware” includes hardware with some analog circuits and components in addition to digital ones.

We need free digital hardware designs

Although we need not reject digital hardware made from nonfree designs in today’s circumstances, we need to develop free designs and should use them when feasible. They provide advantages today, and in the future they may be the only way to use free software.

Free hardware designs offer practical advantages. Multiple companies can fabricate one, which reduces dependence on a single vendor. Groups can arrange to fabricate them in quantity. Having circuit diagrams or HDL code makes it possible to study the design to look for errors or malicious functionalities (it is known that the NSA has procured malicious weaknesses in some computing hardware). Furthermore, free designs can serve as building blocks to design computers and other complex devices, whose specs will be published and which will have fewer parts that could be used against us.

Free hardware designs may become usable for some parts of our computers and networks, and for embedded systems, before we are able to make entire computers this way.

Free hardware designs may become essential even before we can fabricate the hardware personally, if they become the only way to avoid nonfree software. As common commercial hardware is increasingly designed to subjugate users, it becomes increasingly incompatible with free software, because of secret specifications and requirements for code to be signed by someone other than you. Cell phone modem chips and even some graphics accelerators already require firmware to be signed by the manufacturer. Any program in your computer, that someone else is allowed to change but you’re not, is an instrument of unjust power over you; hardware that imposes that requirement is malicious hardware. In the case of cell phone modem chips, all the models now available are malicious.

Some day, free-design digital hardware may be the only platform that permits running a free system at all. Let us aim to have the necessary free digital designs before then, and hope that we have the means to fabricate them cheaply enough for all users.

If you design hardware, please make your designs free. If you use hardware, please join in urging and pressuring companies to make hardware designs free. █

Copyright 2015 Richard Stallman. Released under Creative Commons Attribution No Derivatives 3.0 license.

Summary: The Trojan horse that Microsoft uses to cement its monopoly on desktops and laptops (making it hard or impossible to install and run GNU/Linux) is also being misused to block Coreboot

LAST WEEK we saw numerous reports about UEFI being used to attack, impede — or whatever one wishes to call it — Coreboot. It’s an attack on computing freedom at the very core, but given the long history of Intel crimes, we were hardly shocked by it. We included relevant links in our daily links, but citing [1], the biggest UEFI apologist writes [2] that this is justified in the name of ‘security’, erroneously assuming that it was ever about security rather than domination and control over the user. We have already shown, on numerous occasions in fact (even earlier this year), that UEFI achieves the very opposite of security, enabling even remote bricking of entire motherboards (Intel seems more interested in intel’ agencies than in actual purchasers of hardware). As the apologist is cited by FOSS sites we just thought it is worth pointing out again. People whose job is to write code for UEFI (and a lot of money is being paid for this) have a bit of an undeclared conflict of interest when writing about UEFI.

One solution, as we have pointed out before, is to avoid UEFI, which still helps Microsoft attack GNU/Linux. One effective way to achieve this is to boycott Intel, which deserves a boycott for many other reasons (much bigger and more compelling reasons than this). █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. How Intel and PC makers prevent you from modifying your laptop’s firmware

   Even if you’re rocking the most open of open-source operating systems, chances are your laptop isn’t really that “free,” betrayed by closed firmware binaries lurking deep within the hardware itself.

   Modern UEFI firmware is a closed-source, proprietary blob of software baked into your PC’s hardware. This binary blob even includes remote management and monitoring features, which make it a potential security and privacy threat.

   You might want to replace the UEFI firmware and get complete control over your PC’s hardware with Coreboot, a free software BIOS alternative—but you can’t in PCs with modern Intel processors, thanks to Intel’s Boot Guard and the “Verified Boot” mode PC manufacturers choose.

2. Intel Boot Guard, Coreboot and user freedom

   PC World wrote an article on how the use of Intel Boot Guard by PC manufacturers is making it impossible for end-users to install replacement firmware such as Coreboot on their hardware. It’s easy to interpret this as Intel acting to restrict competition in the firmware market, but the reality is actually a little more subtle than that.

   UEFI Secure Boot as a specification is still unbroken, which makes attacking the underlying firmware much more attractive. We’ve seen several presentations at security conferences lately that have demonstrated vulnerabilities that permit modification of the firmware itself. Once you can insert arbitrary code in the firmware, Secure Boot doesn’t do a great deal to protect you – the firmware could be modified to boot unsigned code, or even to modify your signed bootloader such that it backdoors the kernel on the fly.

Summary: How journalists, analysts and even developers carry water for Intel, usually in exchange for some monetary incentives

MANY of Intel‘s crimes have been covered here in Techrights at one point or another. The company has excellent PR operations that help conceal a great level of abuse and corruption. It’s the same with IBM. Watch this disgusting new puff piece from The Verge and this necessary response to it (“Delusional Media Hypes Intel Partnership With Anita Sarkeesian”) which says: “The Verge lies about us all the time. Hell, as I always cite, one of their former workers actually threatened to go GamerGate hunting at Comic Con. Unsurprisingly, he never caught any flack. Anti-GamerGate has gotten away with everything short of the high crimes like murder and rape, but I’m pretty sure the media would turn a blind eye towards that as well. Because after I just saw Intel co-sign Anita Sarkeesian and IGDA, I’m certain that I’m living on a different planet than these people.”

Intel’s role in GamerGate has already caused one of the leading Linux developers, who was clearly the face of UEFI on Linux, to boycott Intel and cease development of anything Intel-related.

“UEFI can be used for remote bricking (hardware sabotage) by the NSA and the likes of it.”Not only people like Anita Sarkeesian are potentially bribed by Intel for positive publicity that fools the public. Once upon a time the Gartner Group was used as marketing for Intel (false prophecies disguised as recommendations) and Gartner is now seeing the Wintel monopoly on the dive. Only a small portions of computers that are shipped are desktops or laptops with x86 chipsets, so Robert Pogson has visualised some numbers:

Crippling Wintel

[...]

Gartner has built their business on Wintel and now they see 8% growth for the competition as something hopeful… Meanwhile, smartphones have explosive growth and thin clients are doing well too.

In order to further reinforce the Wintel monopoly Intel has made UEFI restricted boot. UEFI can be used for remote bricking (hardware sabotage) by the NSA and the likes of it [1, 2, 3]. Some involved developers deem it necessary to state that they are now working for the government, perhaps realising how controversial their work is. As one put it last year: “At no point have I been contacted with warrants of any kind, or any similar instrument, or in any way, from governmental or non-governmental entities, about inclusion of any kind of malware or backdoor in Fedora’s signed secure boot binaries, including shim, grub2, the kernel, and pesign, nor have I at any time been approached about disclosure of our signin keys. I am also not aware of anyone else involved in our signing that has been contacted with warrants of any kind, or any similar instrument, or in any way, from governmental or non-governmental entities, about inclusion of any kind of malware or backdoor in Fedora’s signed secure boot binaries, including shim, grub2, the kernel, and pesign, nor have I at any time been approached about disclosure of our signing keys.”

In a better world, this whole idiotic ‘secure’ boot would not exist. People don’t need it and the risk introduced by it (sabotage or prevention of access to one’s own PC) is great. As always, we urge readers to boycott UEFI and, where possible, also avoid Intel. █

Summary: The Wintel press, which is bribed by companies that it covers, is challenged by prominent developers and Microsoft continues to plant its patent propaganda in the Wintel-centric (and paid) press

Things are changing for the better as GNU/Linux, usually on non-x86 platforms, continues to gain. The Wintel monoculture is trying to use patents, lockdown (‘secure’ boot), bribes and other forms of abuse to maintain revenue.

“With some exceptions, especially desktops (not necessarily laptops), x86 can now be abandoned.”The many crimes of Intel have not, until very recently, bothered the UEFI apologists, notably Garrett, who now hates Intel (see “Actions have consequences (or: why I’m not fixing Intel’s bugs any more)”. UEFI is bad for several reasons that we mentioned here before and FreeBSD accepts it nonetheless. It is becoming part of an operating system that does not even need x86 because:

A new Beta version has been made available for the FreeBSD 10.1 branch, an operating system for x86, ARM, IA-64, PowerPC, PC-98, and UltraSPARC architectures. Users can now download and test it.

Who needs x86 anyway? With some exceptions, especially desktops (not necessarily laptops), x86 can now be abandoned. Samsung makes its own processors now and it has a thriving business based on Linux (Android and Tizen). When Samsung tried messing about with UEFI it ended up making a machine that was remotely brickable (a real problem that the NSA may exploit). Bricking is only one among numerous problems with UEFI. Our main concern about UEFI is that it’s designed to secure the monoculture known as Wintel.

“Microsoft does not receive a billion dollars per year from Samsung for Android; the deal works in two directions and the PR stunt is attempting to portray Android as very expensive.”Speaking of Samsung, the company is finally fighting Microsoft over patents (rather than sign secret patent deals) and The Mukt explained the insignificance of the latest news spin. As we noted at the time, not only Microsoft boosters relayed the deception but even some FOSS blogs repeated it (probably because of the former group, based on their links), including GNU/Linux advocates such as Robert Pogson and Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols. Microsoft does not receive a billion dollars per year from Samsung for Android; the deal works in two directions and the PR stunt is attempting to portray Android as very expensive. This is propaganda that mostly (originally) comes from pro-Microsoft circles such as CBS and IDG. █

Boycotting Intel is not hard to justify. The company is deeply corrupt. We spent over two years explaining why its UEFI antifeatures too should face a boycott and Silviu Stahie provides yet another reason in this article about a new petition. It says: “The Intel Atom Bay Trail tablets have been out for a few months already, but none of the hardware vendors is providing 64-bit firmware builds for them, which means that you can’t install any Linux distros.”

Here’s more: “In fact, you can’t install Linux on any 32-bit UEFI PC, because the boot loader only supports 64-bit, and this is a major issue for people who really want to used their Intel Atom Bay Trail-powered devices with a Linux OS.”

The solution is quite simple; avoid Intel, potentially dodge x86 (where practically possible), and definitely avoid anything with UEFI on any kind of device. It is not only a patent trap but also means for securing Microsoft’s monopoly. In addition, it’s a potential back door for bricking computers remotely. Intel should be shamed of itself. █

Summary: The dark hearts of computers, with a lot of secrets and circuitry whose behaviour cannot be verified, are also convenient back doors, even without additional bugs (implanted en route)

THE FSF has this interesting new article about “Active Management Technology”. It was written by Ward Vandewege, Matthew Garrett, and Richard M. Stallman, who awarded Garrett for his work on UEFI.

One year ago, around the same time that Snowden leaked some NSA documents, we warned that UEFI could be used to remotely brick PCs. Later on, after the NSA leaks had gone maintream, the NSA pretty much confirmed it was a possible strategy (but defecting this to the Chinese). Going back to 2008 we also warned about back doors, some of which facilitated by broken encryption in hardware (e.g. Intel’s ‘hardware-accelerated’ RNG). That was about a decade after Microsoft had allegedly built back doors into Windows (we know that there are back doors now, but it’s just hard to say when Microsoft started it).

We already wrote a great deal about the problem with UEFI patents, UEFI ‘secure’ boot (taking control over computers, moving control away from the users to put itinto corporate hands and governments), but we have not done much to cover UEFI remote control capabilities, or more broadly Intel’s rogue role in intelligence, leading to a ban in some places (some variants of BSD refuse to use Intel RNGs due to fear of intentionally low entropy that derails encryption).

Quoting the article from Vandewege et al.: “Intel’s Active Management Technology (AMT) is a proprietary remote management and control system for personal computers with Intel CPUs. It is dangerous because it has full access to personal computer hardware at a very low level, and its code is secret and proprietary.”

Intel is a deeply criminal company, so to blindly trust its proprietary technology would be foolish. We have always campaigned against Intel not just because “intel” is shorthand for something rather insinuative although this latter point is now a growing factor, too. Watch what China is doing these days when it comes to hardware policy, not just software policy. Or simply watch what Snowden has been leaking; it’s rather revealing. █

Summary: Xbox One is a failed product and “Surface” is losing hundreds of millions of dollars

THE LATEST episode of TechBytes covers the good news that “Microsoft May Halt Xbox One Production”; it’s news that reminds us of an important fact: “We know that the company has shipped 5 million consoles to retailers since launch, but Microsoft hasn’t been as forthcoming with actual end user sales data.”

When Microsoft does not divulge these figures it always means that Microsoft has something to hide. The same thing has historically been true when it comes to Windows (number of licences issued) and other Microsoft hardware. Microsoft is full of lies.

In other interesting news, Microsoft’s “Surface Loses” because it’s a losing product, by design. As Robert Pogson put it (citing a Microsoft booster, Gavin Clarke): “Do the maths: it cost M$ $2.1billion to sell $1.8billion worth of Surfaces… That’s a loss of $300 million. Eewww! Even without charging itself the tax, they can’t compete in the market.”

The headline at The Register (chosen by the editor) is Microsoft: The MORE Surfaces it sells, the MORE money it loses” (so it’s a bit like Xbox, which lost billions of dollars over the years).

Microsoft is really struggling to re-invent itself for the post-Windows world. So far it has failed and there is now some Microsoft advertising from Microsoft Peter who promotes subscription-based Windows — a horrible idea which is sure to bring rise to GNU/Linux-based operating systems ($0 purchase and subscription charges).

In this article we are citing no Microsoft-hostile sources; instead we link to props of Microsoft, rather than journalists. It helps show just how bad things have become for Microsoft. Microsoft Jack has been defecting away from Microsoft as of late (we wish him well for that), repeatedly promoting some of Microsoft’s competitors for the first time in many years, unlike some in the British press. Gavin Clarke may pretend to be covering GNU/Linux, but most of the time he is just the source/outlet of Microsoft agenda, including his new piece whitewashing Bill Hilf.

We are entering an interesting era where Microsoft is not only struggling (along with Apple) but is also fighting publicly and aggressively against GNU/Linux using attack ads (more so under the 'new' leadership) and racketeering. █

Summary: Reports of “loss of Linux dual-booting” due to Windows Update are investigated further; FSF award to Garrett faces opposition

IT WAS recently reported in Reddit that UEFI was used by Microsoft Windows to wipe out GNU/Linux. Windows Update rendered GNU/Linux unbootable and allegedly turned ‘secure’ boot on to achieve this.

According to this new analysis from Jamie the UEFI explorer, it’s not an isolated incident. He starts by stating: “I can finally report that yes, there is a problem — but it’s generally not as serious as has been reported.” He also writes: “While I found that I was able to ‘fix’ the loss of Linux dual-booting on both of my systems, I am NOT trying to say that everyone who has posted claims about dual-boot being ‘destroyed’ by Windows Update is wrong. I certainly have enough experience with UEFI boot configuration to know that all sorts of strange things are possible, and it may well be that some systems, with some configurations, really do get more seriously damaged by Windows Update than mine have. One very obvious example might be that the Linux items could get deleted from the boot object list. If that happened you would have to use efibootmgr to put them back again.”

But who would know how to do this and how many people would just turn away from GNU/Linux at this stage? This is why UEFI should face a boycott and antitrust complaints against Microsoft get bolstered. I wholeheartedly disgree with FSF for giving Garrett an award. This can be a PR disaster waiting to happen, a bit like Miguel de Icaza and Theo de Raadt and getting such an award before their FSF bashing. Apparently I am not alone in disagreeing with the FSF; Sam Varghese expressed similar concerns, having opposed ‘secure’ boot for quite some time along with many others. He writes: “The Free Software Foundation has given an annual award this year for work that enslaves people to the demands of Microsoft – something that flies in the face of all that the organisation has stood for since its founding.”

This has indeed been a bizarre move and it can help weaken existing complaints (in Europe) over Microsoft’s UEFI tricks. █

Summary: UEFI ‘secure’ boot is bricking laptops again, showing that there are worse aspects to UEFI than the anti-competitive (anti-GNU/Linux) nature of it

THERE IS a new UEFI nightmare scenario, which relates somewhat to the fact that the NSA can remotely destroy (as in brick) computers with UEFI, provided they use a ‘faulty’ implementation of UEFI [1] (UEFI ‘secure’ boot is faulty by design). “”Beware Samsung laptops” is a lesson the Linux community has already learned,” says the author of the article, but why not name UEFI also? “For Swedish Linux users,” he says, “the main lesson seems to be “Ask your big-box store salesperson to certify in writing that the machine she sells you is capable of running Linux equally well as it runs Windows”.”

This is becoming a serious issue. Germany has already pretty much banned machines with UEFI ‘secure’ boot, perhaps realising the potential hazards. Here in the UK there is concern about Windows in general, even among CESG staff (the CESG’s Web site has been down for half a day now, seemingly after getting cracked, following a migration to Windows 2 years ago). To quote CESG: “Local authorities connect to central government systems through a Public Services Network (PSN), via which they can share essential services in an effort to drive efficiency. GCHQ IT security arm CESG provides advice and certification for councils using the PSN.

“According to Gartner’s public sector research director Neville Cannon, CESG rules state that in order to connect to the PSN, authorities must run “patchable” software, which means those running XP after D-day could be in serious trouble.”

This again is an NSA back door. The security panic leads some major entities to migrating to Linux [2,3] and Microsoft’s UEFI-equipped (and Linux-hostile) hardware is now declared dead, perhaps because nobody really wanted it and it self-bricked, due to UEFI 'secure' boot'. This is a “so-so article but points to an interesting attitude,” iophk said, but it basically shows that the ‘new’ “Surface” is a failure as big as the ‘old’ and clumsy “Surface”, which was dubbed a “big ass table” and vanished quietly about half a decade ago. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. Swedish Linux Users: Avoid Elgiganten

   As detailed here before, a few Samsung laptop models have a firmware bug that makes them liable to becoming inert bricks if you install Linux. It’s a one-way process. This happened to me when I bought an ultrabook from the Elgiganten big-box store last summer. Both Samsung and the store refused to reimburse me for the loss of my machine’s use. At the suggestion of my home municipality’s consumer advisor (konsumentrådgivare), I took the matter to Allmänna reklamationsnämnden, the National Board for Consumer Disputes (complaint no 2013-10081).

2. The Death of Windows XP Won’t Kill the ATM Industry, or Help Bitcoin

   The second alternative is to go for an alternative OS altogether.

   This is not as farfetched as it sounds: Linux has a much smaller footprint than Windows 7 and, as a result, some ATM operators are considering a switch to Linux rather than the Microsoft product.

   This would not be the first time ATMs have transitioned to a different OS. Before the industry moved to XP, most ATM’s were running IBM’s OS/2 operating system.

3. Banks turning to Linux to replace Windows XP on their ATMs

ECT, going by the name Linux Insider, has just published this article about Android-x86 — a project that mostly helps a convicted monopoly abuser (Intel) interject itself into Linux/Android.

The article is very negative about Google and it speaks of complaints for abuse in a Free software project. We have seen such stuff before and it usually turns out to be provocation. It has been very typical for Microsoft people to do so, or even Microsoft proxies such as Nokia. It’s often provocation against Google using forks that don’t obey simple rules, or simply lead to FUD, patent taxation, and even severe privacy issues like NSA/Microsoft Skype.

“Sadly enough, ECT only quotes people who are against Google. No balance is offered, not even an attempt at balance.”Dealing with the core of the article from ECT, it says that the “maintainer of the Android-x86 Project has suggested that the Justice Department should investigate whether Google has been interfering with adoption of the open source code his community is developing.”

This is attributed to Chih-Wei Huang, which is a common name in places like Taiwan. There is Dr. Chih-Wei Huang, who worked 5+ years in Washington/Redmond (with Microsoft payroll), but he is not to be confused with this guy (same full name and even the same username in the same country) that has a good track record when it comes to Free software in China and Taiwan. We already know of former Microsoft staff like Xuxian Jiang, who pretend to be researching Android but are actually FUD mills against Android. But this one guy has nothing to do with Microsoft, unlike Dr. Chih-Wei Huang (see his revealing CV).

According to ECT, Huang said (to ECT): “Asus announced the dual OS laptop TD300LA in the CES and got very positive feedback. However, Google asked to stop the product so Asus are unable to ship it, sadly.”

This doesn’t sound right. Days ago we covered this and it was actually Microsoft that put the kibosh on the project (see the links here), not just Google as previously (and perhaps even falsely) reported. Neither party wanted to support this product. Several publications reported on that. So why is Huang picking only on Google?

Sadly enough, ECT only quotes people who are against Google. No balance is offered, not even an attempt at balance. There is no approach for comment from Google. It only says: “Asus executives did not respond to repeated requests for comment on Huang’s assessment of the alleged thwarted hardware release. Google officials several times declined requests for interviews to discuss the Android-x86 Project.”

What about Asus then? Maybe he should ask Asus (according to Wikipedia his current employer) for more information before accusing Google. What does Google have to lose here? Motivation is too weak for this theory to make sense. If anyone has reasons to interfere here, it would be ARM (UK-based) or Nvidia (also external to Asus).

Asus already ships a lot of Android (e.g. the Nexus 7), so only hardware limitation is the mystery here. Intel’s x86 is notoriously unsuitable for mobile devices, especially due to heat, size, and energy consumption. Intel’s “Atom” was a massive failure; heads were rolling. In fact, Google would generally be wise to avoid or to dodge those chipsets that put Windows to shame (heavy, clumsy, not running for long). But it doesn’t mean that Google intervened; in fact, maybe Asus reached those same conclusions on its own.

Five years ago when Asus announced a Linux-booting device (Android Eee PC, running Linux/Android) is was most seemingly killed because pressure from Microsoft, not Google (just read what the head of Asus said at the time).

It seems likely that Huang is barking up the wrong tree. We are eager to give Google the benefit of the doubt here because looking at the track record of Android, there tend to be provocations every now and then, trying to portray Android as “not open” (common line from Apple and Microsoft), abusive, monopolistic, etc. Almost every time this type of claims floods the media it eventually turns out to be bogus and often it ends up revealing an embarrassing link to Microsoft (which shamelessly runs anti-Google smear campaigns). █

Summary: Xbox “One” so big a failure — not just a surveillance device — that its chiefs continue to jump ship, leaving Microsoft in disarray

THERE has been an exceptionally major departure of high-level staff inside Microsoft and we mostly covered it years ago (well before Ballmer stepped down). These days we cover additions to this list only when readers send us links such as this one, which says that the Xbox Chief Product Officer is quitting Microsoft and canceling his appearance at GDC. “Infecting wireless Hi-Fi and audio company Sonos now,” says our reader, alluding to a culture of moles such as Elop.

Xbox-related departures are frequent and many. Recent posts noted that Xbox One was failing to sell. It is far behind the competition, which almost doubles it in terms of sales (Sony easily holds the crown).

Why would anyone at all ever buy anything that’s branded “Xbox”? It’s not only burning down houses, killing people inside those houses (due to design flaws in Xbox 360). It’s an abusive piece of DRM in a box. Those who buy Xbox are in essence paying for what we know to be surveillance equipment that spies on the buyer [1, 2, 3] for various governments such as Britain’s. If more people knew what Xbox is really doing, then nobody would be foolish enough to buy it anymore and the whole product line would have to be cancelled, just like Microsoft’s many failed platforms for mobile. █

Intel, which just like Microsoft is in bed with the NSA and the whole intelligence apparatus (see this recent response from Intel's chief and what Microsoft does with Lync, essentially spying on businesses), simply deserves no business. Intel not only helped Microsoft’s abusive monopoly but also engaged in a lot of expensive crime (expensive to the public). Karma is well overdue. Vista 8 has not been a hot seller of Intel/x86 hardware; quite the opposite. In fact, Intel recently laid off many employees.

Mr. Pogson has a decent take on it and he argues: ‘I don’t know whether or not it’s wishful thinking but rumours have it that ‘Microsoft plans to further decrease Windows 8.1 licensing rates for entry-level PCs priced below US$250 and tablets, from nearly US$50 currently to about US$15, according to Taiwan-based PC supply chain makers.’ (source)

We covered the lowering of prices yesterday. It shows that Microsoft has almost given up, especially in low-end devices. This is where Android reigns.

Android has been a boon for Linux. The NSA-proof Blackphone is said to be running Android [1], some new rugged devices run Android [2], and the world’s biggest phones (big screens) run Android [3]. Chrome OS and Android now threaten Windows on the desktop as well [4,5]. It’s not just Taiwanese phone makers [6] that follow this trend; Taiwanese PC makers have been doing the same thing as of late.

Android is of course based on Linux [7] — a fact that Linux bashers miserably like to deny. As the release of version 4.4 is approaching [8] Intel tries hard to interject itself into it [9], but it’s not going to work because Intel hardware is not just designed for energy efficiency. Leading devices, such as the Android 4.5-based Nexus device that’s expected to come out in the summer [10], do not use x86. Intel is a misfit in the mobile world. It’s a niche!

Intel missed the boat when it comes to Android. It knows it. Innovation is now centered around Android (new example in [11-13]) and some of the best applications target Linux [14-17], showing that the only rival Google has now is its own ego [18]. Microsoft and Apple cannot catch up. With large backers like Visa, MasterCard, and Sony [19,20] (howevr unethical they can be) it is clear that there are big powers driving Linux inertia, stealing the thunder away from the middle ages of clumpsy “PCs”. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. $629 Blackphone aims to hide you from the NSA

   Like the idea of using a pocket-sized computer to make calls, send messages, surf the web, and smash birds into pigs… but don’t like the idea of government agencies snooping on your communications?

2. Rugged Android tablet offers IP65 ingress protection

   Aaeon announced a rugged, 10.1-inch tablet running Android 4.0 on a Tegra 2 SoC, and featuring IP65 ingress protection and industrial temperature operation.

3. Are Android phones too big?

   You don’t have to look too hard at the slate of new smartphones to see Android’s “bigger is better” ethos. While iPhones have remained resolutely conservatively sized, Android manufacturers continue to push the limits with phones like the 5.5-inch LG Optimus G Pro or the 6.3-inch Samsung Galaxy Mega.

4. Will Chrome OS and Android dominate the 2014 Linux desktop?

   Android phone and tablet users have now become accustomed to the immense functionalities and level of comfort that the platform offers

5. Chrome OS and Android may be top desktop Linux distros in 2014

   How ironic that Android Desktop and Chrome OS are two of the first slides in the article. Did anybody ever really think that Google would be the one that might introduce Linux to the broader desktop market? And yet it seems to be happening as Android moves to the desktop and Chromebooks explode in popularity.

   The Windows 8 fiasco has opened the door to Linux in a way that hasn’t happened before. Many Windows users took one look at Windows 8 and immediately cast about for alternatives for their computers that didn’t lead them to Apple. So the time is ripe for Chromebooks and Android Desktop.

6. Acer teases next Liquid smartphone ahead of MWC

   Featuring Android 4.2.2 operating system, it is said to shoot detailed 4K video–the next generation of ultra-high-definition video.

7. The Linux Kernel: Android?

   Now that we have studied the Linux kernel very well and learned how to make our own, we will move on to a slightly different direction in this series. Many of you may be unaware of this, but Android is Linux. True, they are not quite the same, but Android is Linux. For example, Ubuntu is “GNU/Linux” while Android is “Dalvik/Linux”. If an operating system uses the Linux kernel, then it is a Linux system. The userland (GNU and Dalvik) does not determine whether an OS is Linux or not. Android uses a modified Linux kernel. As we know, Android runs on phones. As you may remember from configuring the kernel, there were no drivers for phone devices (like small keypads, 3G/4G cards, SIM cards, etc.). The Linux kernel used in Android lacks drivers that would not be in phones and instead has drivers for phone devices. In other words, no Android system uses a Vanilla Kernel.

8. Android-x86 4.4 RC1

9. Intel aims 2.3GHz quad-core 64-bit SoC at Android 4.4

   Intel launched a 64-bit dual-core Atom Z34xx mobile processor and announced an upcoming quad-core “Moorefield” version, promising Android 4.4.2 support.

10. Android 4.5 to arrive on Nexus 8 in July

    Google surprised everyone at last year’s I/O when it didn’t announce any new devices or updates for Android. This year too, Google I/O conference scheduled for June 25-26 is expected to focus on new services. Taking this to be true, Android Geeks reports that Nexus 8 will be launched in July running Android 4.5.

11. Google’s Project Tango Struts Into the Spotlight

    The prototype device has a 5-inch display, runs Android, and uses the Unity Game Engine. It is loaded with developer tools, including application programming interfaces, or APIs, that offer depth, orientation and position data to standard Android applications that are written in Java or C/C++ programming languages.

12. Project Tango: Google’s all-ringing, all-dancing 3D-sensing smartphone

    Google hasn’t just kept Motorola’s patents in its deal with Lenovo, it’s also keeping the mobile manufacturer’s skunkworkish Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) group.

13. Project Tango 3D-sensing Android phone demoed

    Project Tango was announced yesterday by Google and Motorola’s Advanced Research and Projects” (ATAP) group, which Google will retain when it sells Motorola Mobility to Lenovo. The 5-inch Project Tango smartphone prototype augments a basic Android phone with a pair of Myriad 1 vision co-processors from Movidius. It also integrates a variety of sensors, including a compass, gyros, and Kinect-like 3D visual sensors for integrated depth sensing and motion tracking.

14. Best Android Apps For Finding and Sharing New Recipes

    Love cooking? Then you know how hard it is to find new recipes. Furthermore, it’s even harder to share those recipes with your friends or family, especially when you are on the move. If you are into cooking, let go of all your worries about finding new recipes as we have curated some of the best recipe apps that you can download on your Android smartphone or tablet. These applications will not only help you find new recipes but also share them with the people that matter.

15. Review of Clumsy Bird: A Flappy bird clone with Angry Bird flavor

16. BitTorrent’s revamped Android apps let you download just the files you want

17. Android App Development for Beginners: Navigation Tabs

18. Google’s Tim Bray steps down in the name of working remotely

    Web guru and Android enthusiast Tim Bray has announced he’s leaving Google. Why? Because he wants to work from home.

    “It’s an amicable separation in the face of irreconcilable differences: I wouldn’t move to California and Google wouldn’t open a Vancouver office,” Bray wrote in a blog post. “Both before and after being hired, I had been asked to consider moving south. I didn’t want to and politely declined. Eventually, the group I’m in politely informed me that staying remote wasn’t an option.”

19. Visa, MasterCard start using Android for mobile payments

    MasterCard and Visa want to make it easier for you to pay for goods at retail stores with a tap of a smartphone. The US credit card groups on Wednesday separately announced two Internet-based technologies providing merchants and banks with more options to make mobile payments happen in a big way.

20. Sony Xperia Z2 tablet specs leaked

    Tipped to measure 6.4mm thick in a waterproof body, the tablet will feature Android 4.4 Kitkat OS (it’s is expected to be skinned with Sony’s custom user interface). It will also pack a 3GB of RAM, a 6,000mAh battery, an 8MP rear-facing camera, a 2MP front-facing camera, and 16GB of onboard storage expandable via microSD card.

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.

THANKS to news sites like Linux Gizmos, it has been fairly easy to keep track of the growth of Linux (often with GNU) in embedded systems and devices. There are news updates about in-vehicle infotainment systems [1,2], embeddable Web servers [3], rugged scanners [4], systems with improve real-time support [5], Intel devices [6-8], and Raspberry Pi [9-13] among other single board computers [14-17].

It is interesting that devices where the operating system is less visible (if visible at all) have been scarcely explored by the press. This helped people belittle Linux, denying its important role not just in server rooms but also in devices that people are using every day around their houses and offices. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. Automotive Technology Platform Developed for Linux-Based Systems

   The new Mentor Graphics’ Embedded Automotive Technology Platform (ATP) for Linux-based in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) system development is now available and aimed at automotive tier-one suppliers for better graphics and optimized functionality. It’s the latest innovation to aid in the development of more responsive user interfaces.

2. Celebrating the Marriage of Automotive and Consumer Electronics at CES

3. Embeddable webserver adds source and NAS plugin

   Mako Server was announced last June. Based on Barracuda and Lua, the embeddable webserver is sufficiently compact to run on a Raspberry Pi. Like the other RTL technologies, it’s cross-platform, but is focused primarily on Linux.

4. SDG Systems Announces Yocto Project Participation and Rugged Linux Scanner

   SDG Systems announced today that the company has been approved to be a Yocto Project Participant. SDG Systems also announced the availability of the Janam XG series rugged, gun-type scanner running a Linux implementation built using the Yocto Project.

5. RT-enhanced Linux stack aims at comms gear

   Like Enea Linux 3.0, the new Enea LWRT focuses on real-time Linux support. Enea LWRT is primarily aimed at cellular base stations and media gateways that require real-time features like determinism, minimal interrupt latency, and high throughput, says the company. The solution is said to be optimized for integrating Linux with Enea’s OSEck.

6. An Intel Galileo Walkthrough

   “Galileo” is software compatible with Arduino’s IDE, the operating system is a GNU/Linux distribution, which “runs” on the board only processor. The Arduino sketches are run as processes in the user space of the GNU/Linux operating system. The available IDE compiles the sketches in “.elf” format, an executable binary format, originally developed by UNIX System Laboratories and commonly used in GNU/Linux.

7. Wireless enabled rugged box-PC runs Linux on Haswell

   Adlink has launched a compact, rugged industrial PC, featuring a 4th Generation Intel Core i7 processor, dual MiniPCIe slots, a uSIM socket, and Linux support.

8. Intel headgear to offer fast offline voice processing

   So far, Linux is the only supported OS Intel has mentioned for either the original single-core Quark or the dual-core model.

9. Raspberry Pi: Extending the life of the SD card

   SD cards are said to have a finite life. If you are planning on running a Raspberry Pi 24x7x365, there are some steps that you can take with GNU/Linux to extend the life of the card: here are some ideas.

10. Video: Two Years of Raspberry Pi

11. Setting Up Our Voice-Over-IP Phone System

    The brains live in a model B Raspberry Pi. I installed the GNU/Linux distribution Raspbian using the easy NOOBS on an SD card, then installed RasPBX — FreePBX and Asterisk — using the Pi Store via the desktop as that was easiest.

12. Smart Home Automation with Linux and Raspberry Pi

    Home automation is a hot topic at the moment but it isn’t an easy area to work in. Can a book on Linux and Raspberry Pi sort it all out?

13. Master the amazing Raspberry Pi

    As the Raspberry Pi Foundation rockets towards producing its Pi-millionth board, it’s bringing with it an eager and innovative new generation of computer scientists. If educating an entire generation of children isn’t exciting enough, Linux just so happens to be the software smarts that underpins the whole venture.

    But it can’t all be Pi for tea; we still have a huge main helping of desktop Linux goodness to tuck in to. We’re very excited about our roundup of VoIP clients, to embrace a world of fully-digital communication. From the now oddly Microsoft- owned Skype to the fantastic Jitsi, instant text, voice and video messaging is a slick and fast Linux affair.

14. Tiny $14 ARM9 module runs Linux

    Back in 2006, Italian embedded Linux manufacturer Acme Systems shipped a penguin-shaped Tux Case for its original Fox single board computer (SBC). The new Arietta G25 computer-on-module (COM) is equipped with the same Atmel AT91SAM9G20 processor used by an updated Fox G20 SBC, as well as a newer 24-Euro Aria G25 COM that is more closely related to the Arietta G25 (see farther below). The Tux Case is still available, as well.

15. HMI-focused ARM9 SBC features 7-inch touchscreen

16. Linux-ready SBC debuts tiny stackable PCIe bus

17. Tiny hacker SBC offers robot-friendly Linux distro

    The Kickstarter-backed “Rex” is a $99 robotics SBC with a DSP-enabled Cortex-A8 SoC, camera and audio I/O, dual I2C ports, and an Arduino-friendly “Alphalem OS” Linux distro.

    A recent Georgia Tech study found that Kickstarter projects often find success thanks to the use of effective marketing buzzwords like “guaranteed.” That word never shows up the Rex project’s Kickstarter page, which is perhaps one reason why this promising project has yet to reach a third of its $90,000 funding goal, with less than two weeks to go. We think Rex is worth a closer look. (Satisfaction guaranteed!)

Summary: Calls for boycott against UEFI receive supportive proof from journalists who are unable to install GNU/Linux because of Microsoft/Intel locks

WE HAVE already published many articles about UEFI because it is clearly a Linux-hostile plot to remove users’ control over their PCs. It’s about limiting the ability to boot operating systems, usually by giving authorisation powers to some third party like Microsoft. Novell (ex-)employees in particular — suffice to say because of their Microsoft ties — have been friendly towards this agenda and they laid inside Linux some of the endorsing code which weakens antitrust action.

Based on this new report from one who knows his way around GNU/Linux, UEFI is a pain in the neck. To quote his article’s summary: “Opinions vary on whether the UEFI standards are helping or hurting the migration to Linux. Enterprise users can select a Linux distro certified to work with UEFI standards, but not all Linux distros have keys that allow it to install. Despite the intent of the UEFI standards, the process so far is not universally successful. It should “just work,” said the Linux Foundation’s Greg Kroah-Hartman.”

Well, not quite. Novell’s Kroah-Hartman played a key role in pushing Microsoft-serving code into Linux and this includes UEFI restricted boot. UEFI should never have been embraced by Linux; it should be shunned because it’s a patent trap that serves a rapidly-shrinking criminal entity known as Intel as well as its partner Microsoft (they are jointly known as “Wintel”). Intel cannot keep up with mobile revolution according to the latest news [1], so it must be fighting to keep the old abusive duopoly/oligopoly going. To quote more from the above article: “I have extensive practice with installing various Linux distros on older and new computers. I am handy at setting up disk partitions and dual booting to maintain a working Microsoft Windows OS alongside numerous Linux distros. I also have routinely installed Linux on older and new computers by removing the Windows OS and replacing the entire drive with one or more Linux distros.

“However, it was not until I attempted to do a Linux installation on a new Gateway Series DX desktop with Windows 8 installed that I stared that UEFI monster down. At first I nearly ran back to the big box store to return the shiny new Windows box. I was not able to get the BIOS settings for the UEFI and Secure Boot permissions to even see USB and DVD live sessions for Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Korora 19 or Puppy Linux. That made routine installation of Linux impossible.

“The current use of UEFI and Secure Boot technologies might all too conveniently lock down the hard drive to lock out the installation of other operating systems — like Linux. Successfully installing Linux on UEFI/Secure Boot hardware controls depends on which computer brand or model you buy. Some of the newest BIOS versions effectively lock down any other OS access.”

Advice to the author: join the effort to enforce antitrust action. The European authorities have already received a formal complaint from lawyers. In the mean time, boycott hardware that comes with UEFI. Voting with one’s wallet is casting a strong vote. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. Intel could abandon smartphone market: Report

   Intel’s deal with Chinese manufacturer Lenovo to supply chips for its smartphones has now ended. The processor giant, however, is reportedly working on other partnerships to replace the deal. Asus also released the Intel-powered Asus Zenfone series at CES. The new line of smartphones—featuring 4-inch, 5-inch and 6-inch models—will be released in March, mainly aimed at the China and Southeast Asia markets.