Albert W. Hopkins wrote:
On Mon, 2011-09-26 at 11:15 -0500, Dale wrote:
So buy a mobo without it or that can disable it. Got it. It'll be a
good while before I buy a new mobo tho. I'm sure they will have a
nice
fix by then but this is something I need to remember just in
case. ;-)
Ok, I'll bite...
It depends on who makes your system. For example, I've got a new
laptop, with UEFI BIOS and SATA HDD, but if you go in the UEFI settings
and change a couple of settings, you'll be able to boot into DOS. Why?
Because, surprisingly, they still have quite a few corporate customers
that need to use DOS. So if you can boot DOS you can boot Linux.
Some manufacturers still provide firmware and BIOS updates via DOS boot
cds. If you can boot from a non-signed CD, you can boot Linux. Some
manufactures still consider it a competitive advantage to offer
"fast-boot" linux-based firmware. Likely those would be able to be
manipulated in order to to boot Linux from disk.
On the server side, I don't think there is any major server manufacturer
dumb enough to sell a system not capable of running Linux.
In short, it's probably less of a problem then than people make it out
to be. It's akin to the old(?) days when Broadcom cards didn't work
with Linux. The solution is always simple: don't buy a system that has
a Broadcom card.
Well, I build my rigs and no laptops either. Basically, if this does
come to pass, I'll just buy a mobo that allows it to be turned off or
one that doesn't have it at all.
I think the mobo should have a way to disable it hardware wise as well.
Maybe a jumper or something. I know I'm not a majority here but I don't
have and never have had windows. So, if some people are forced to
chose, M$ could lose some more users. There are quite a few people that
use windows only to play games and Linux for everything else. What's
that ole saying about shooting yourself in the foot? lol
Well, my current rig will last me for a few years I hope. Maybe it will
be dealt with by then. Jeez, initramfs crap and this all in about a
month. What will happen next month? Oh, /home has to be on / too.
Dale
:-) :-)
