Dear all,

This discussion about OS's seems like a good time to flag up the UEFI
Secure Boot issue, for any of you who haven't heard about it. Quite what
it means for Linux depends on whose commentary you read, but it is just
possible that the carefree days of buying any x86-based system with
standard hardware and installing whatever Linux distro you like on it
are coming to an end.

I don't pretend to grasp all the details, but if I have understood
correctly, the following scenario will become theoretically possible
when Windows 8 certified hardware goes on sale around October 26:

(1) You buy a Windows 8 certified machine with Windows 8 pre-installed.

(2) You attempt to install a Linux distro on it, like you have done in
the past with other hardware. This fails.

(3) You do a bit of research, work out that Secure Boot is likely to be
the problem, and that the particular Linux distro you want to install
won't work with Secure Boot at all.

(4) With a bit more reading, you find that Microsoft have specified as
part of the Windows 8 hardware certification requirements that disabling
Secure Boot should be possible for "a physically present user", at least
for x86-based hardware. [ARM-based hardware is another story, but that
is not of general interest to crystallographers.]

(5) The manufacturer of your new machine has decided that only 0.00001%
of purchasers of their machines are going to want to disable Secure
Boot, so haven't bothered to actually implement and/or document a way of
doing it. They have also gambled that Microsoft aren't committed enough
to that part of their own requirements to take any action over its
violation (after all, they might say to themselves, it wouldn't make any
sense for Microsoft to withdraw Windows 8 certification from our
machines just because a few geeks can't install Linux on them).

I don't know how likely this scenario is, but disabling Secure Boot is
probably not a good thing to do if you want to use the machine to
dual-boot Windows 8 and Linux. If Secure Boot is a useful line of
defence against Windows malware, it would be better to leave it on and
have a way of booting into Linux without disabling it.

Some Linux distributors have taken various steps to cope with this issue
(or are at least thinking about it, with the expectation that they will
have figured out something in time), but it will be something to
consider when buying Windows 8 certified hardware in the future. It may
be a problem if you want to install a customised or non-mainstream Linux
distro. Also even if current/future Linux distro's implement ways of
working with Secure Boot, installing older versions may be problematic
(there are several reasons for wanting to use older OS's). I don't know
how using virtual machines will be impacted by this, if at all.

Please don't ask me for clarifications about all this. I am not an
expert and I am only paraphrasing what other people have written. If you
want to know more, these two links are reasonable starting points, and
are both reasonably up-to-date:

<http://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/Features/No-Free-Boots>

<http://www.zdnet.com/another-way-around-linuxs-windows-secureboot-problem-7000000829/>

To my knowledge, RedHat/Fedora and Canonical (i.e. Ubuntu) have decided
on (different) solutions, both with some attendant controversy.
SUSE/openSUSE are actively working on it. I have not been able to find
anything about any plans by Debian. I also don't know what the impact
will be on RedHat derivatives like CentOS and Scientific Linux.

Regards,
Peter.

On Thu, 2012-08-09 at 08:55 -0500, Jacob Keller wrote:
> Dear List,
> 
> 
> I guess this is somewhat of a perennial issue, but I am faced with
> choosing an OS for a new computer, and am curious about benefits and
> drawbacks with regard to crystallography. So far, I have been using
> windows, and have found no limitations whatsoever, but then again,
> maybe I don't know what I am missing. But, since so many folks out
> there use Macs, I am open to using one. Are there any really
> reasonable arguments for preferring Mac over windows (or linux) with
> regard to crystallography? What can Mac/Linux do that windows cannot
> (especially considering that there is Cygwin)? What wonderful features
> am I missing?
> 
> 
> Jacob
> 
> 
> -- 
> *******************************************
> Jacob Pearson Keller
> Northwestern University
> Medical Scientist Training Program
> email: [log in to unmask]
> *******************************************
> 

-- 
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