On Tue, Sep 24, 2013 at 10:30 PM, Balamurugan <emailstorbala@gmail.com> wrote:
On 09/25/2013 04:59 AM, Bob Proulx wrote:
Catherine Gramze wrote:
I intend to build a computer for the specific purpose of running
Debian. I have had a bad experience with a store-bought computer,
which seemed to be wholly unable to boot to anything but Windows 8 -
there was no option in the BIOS to boot to the hard drive, or even
to the EFI partition, but only to the Windows Boot Manager. Even
with Secure Boot turned off.
It looks like you ran into the MS Window 8 Restricted Boot problem.
http://www.fsf.org/search?SearchableText=secure+boot
So, I am looking for recommendations on hardware, particularly
motherboards, known to play nicely with Debian and boot
consistently. Building my own system is not new to me, but something
I have not done for 10 years or so, so the appropriate BIOS settings
on the new EFI and UEFI mobos are unknown to me. All advice is
solicited.
Check the dates on these older postings (time flies and the best
hardware moves along) but here are two references:
http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2012/10/msg01189.html
http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2013/04/msg00180.html
Recently one of my friend's brother bought a Lenova laptop. My friend asked
me to install Ubuntu in that laptop but that machine was not detecting
Ubuntu and directly booting into Windows 8. Then after bit of struggle, we
went into the bios and changed the boot mode from 'UEFI' mode to 'Legacy'
mode. Since we were installing by pen drive, we changed the boot order also.
After the above steps, it detected Ubuntu and we finally installed Ubuntu
along with Windows (as dual boot). The problem starts now. We were not able
to boot windows from the Ubuntu grub menu boot entry. If we want to boot
Windows 8, we need to change back the boot entry to UEFI mode in the bios
and then only Windows boots from Windows boot manager.
The reason behind this is Windows 8 is been made to boot only in UEFI mode
and hence the OEM vendors (like Lenova) are configuring their machines
accordingly. They don't mind/care about other free software OS.
Just before this instance, I bought a laptop prebuild with Ubuntu (DELL
vostro 2420). It doesn't had these circus as it was shipped with Ubuntu.
I thought of sharing this details with you and our fellow community. The
link 'http://www.fsf.org/search?SearchableText=secure+boot' shared by Bob
gives you some insight on this restricted booting.
Please don't top post.
And please don't conflate the fact that you couldn't install Ubuntu on
a Lenovo with UEFI with the fact that it cannot be done.
I've just installed Ubuntu on a Lenovo and it's the seventh such
install on UEFI laptops.
The FSF usually stakes out extreme positions.
Some debunking of Secure Boot myths by the (main) developer of the
Secure Boot shim:
http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/10971.html