Booting Linux using UEFI can brick Samsung laptops
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Re: Booting Linux using UEFI can brick Samsung laptops
#2Say what you will about the old BIOS systems but at least it worked and everyone understood it. EFI/uEFI seems to be a big clusterfuck.
Re: Booting Linux using UEFI can brick Samsung laptops
#3Say what you will about the old BIOS systems but at least it worked and everyone understood it. EFI/uEFI seems to be a big clusterfuck.
That's because it's a lot harder to fuck up a few kilobytes of assembly than it is to fuck up several MB of bootloaders, device drivers, filesystem drivers, code signature verification, etc, etc, all of which are required for a complete EFI implementation.
What we are seeing here is solid evidence of the fact that software is hard - and a lot of companies just don't have the chops to do a good job. Somehow I doubt the Surface Pro would have bugs anything like this, for example.
Re: Booting Linux using UEFI can brick Samsung laptops
#4Say what you will about the old BIOS systems but at least it worked and everyone understood it. EFI/uEFI seems to be a big clusterfuck.
That's because it's a lot harder to fuck up a few kilobytes of assembly than it is to fuck up several MB of bootloaders, device drivers, filesystem drivers, code signature verification, etc, etc, all of which are required for a complete EFI implementation. What we are seeing here is solid evidence of the fact that software is hard - and a lot of companies just don't have the chops to do a good job. Somehow I doubt th…
I guess Surface Pro will be locked down via Secure Boot and won't ever boot Linux unless jailbroken. Whether that's inherently better is probably another question.
Re: Booting Linux using UEFI can brick Samsung laptops
#5Say what you will about the old BIOS systems but at least it worked and everyone understood it. EFI/uEFI seems to be a big clusterfuck.
I am completely and utterly baffled by this statement. Do you realize how many man-years have been spent working around BIOS bugs over the years? Get any kernel developer a drink, then just say the word 'BIOS'; your opinion of UEFI will change pretty rapidly.
I've dealt with kernel dev for BIOS systems, CSM development for UEFI, etc etc. I'll stick with UEFI, even if it does still have some growing pains.
Re: Booting Linux using UEFI can brick Samsung laptops
#6Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's because it's a lot harder to fuck up a few kilobytes of assembly than it is to fuck up several MB of bootloaders, device drivers, filesystem drivers, code signature verification, etc, etc, all of which are required for a complete EFI implementation. What we are seeing here is solid evidence of the fact that software is hard - and a lot of companies just don't have the chops to do a good job. Somehow I doubt th…
I guess Surface Pro will be locked down via Secure Boot and won't ever boot Linux unless jailbroken. Whether that's inherently better is probably another question.
According to Microsoft’s own “Windows Hardware Certification Requirements for Client and Server Systems”,[0] on non-ARM systems it is obligatory to offer the ability to disable Secure Boot:
QUOTATION START
18. Mandatory. Enable/Disable Secure Boot. On non-ARM systems, it is required to implement the ability to disable Secure Boot via firmware setup. A physically present user must be allowed to disable Secure Boot via firmware setup without possession of PKpriv. A Windows Server may also disable Secure Boot remotely using a strongly authenticated (preferably public-key based) out-of-band management connection, such as to a baseboard management controller or service processor. Programmatic disabling of Secure Boot either during Boot Services or after exiting EFI Boot Services MUST NOT be possible. Disabling Secure Boot must not be possible on ARM systems.
QUOTATION END
0. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/library/windows/hardware/jj1...
Re: Booting Linux using UEFI can brick Samsung laptops
#7Just disabling the driver doesn't seem like the ultimate solution... Have they even identified the problem itself? Why aren't they just fixing it? Is it on the hardware site or in the driver software? They should fix that.
Re: Booting Linux using UEFI can brick Samsung laptops
#8I was about to pick one of these laptops up late last year until I happened to stumble across that very bug report myself:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-cdimage/+bug/1040557?comme... Everyone seems to have it working fine with UEFI disabled, and several people have noted the vendor or Samsung has provided a replacement in the cases where it was bricked.
At least in their darkest hours, Linux users can still put on a smile:
"[...] they changed the motherboard and it's working again now. I won't try to install Ubuntu again though. The whole process took about 2 weeks."
Re: Booting Linux using UEFI can brick Samsung laptops
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's because it's a lot harder to fuck up a few kilobytes of assembly than it is to fuck up several MB of bootloaders, device drivers, filesystem drivers, code signature verification, etc, etc, all of which are required for a complete EFI implementation. What we are seeing here is solid evidence of the fact that software is hard - and a lot of companies just don't have the chops to do a good job. Somehow I doubt th…
I guess Surface Pro will be locked down via Secure Boot and won't ever boot Linux unless jailbroken. Whether that's inherently better is probably another question.
Quite likely it will be locked down. Even if it's not, however, I don't think Microsoft's EFI implementation will be so crap that drivers can brick the device.
Re: Booting Linux using UEFI can brick Samsung laptops
#10Say what you will about the old BIOS systems but at least it worked and everyone understood it. EFI/uEFI seems to be a big clusterfuck.
Everyone understood BIOS? Really? I thought one of the issues with BIOS that almost nobody understood how it actually worked any more. Large chunks of it are tens of years old and the people who created them have moved on...