Because that’s the only explanation that Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols sees in this. It can’t be to prevent, say, boot-sector malware from installing on the machine. Microsoft’s single sole solitary goal is to enslave the masses and keep them down on the Micro… excuse me the Mafis$oft plantation.
That said, I do agree with SJVN at the end. OEMs would not get on board with this, because it probably forecloses on them customizing the system with preboot software (which they’ve been playing with before).
That said, there’s also no evidence that OEMs won’t provide a switch that turns off secure-boot, so that if you must install Linux, you can still fiddle some setting in the UEFI to install it. And if you are using Linux, you must be used to fiddling your settings by now.
Comments
One word. Five letters.
Grub2.
That said, I’m not sure that this is a smart, or even a desirable (from an MS standpoint) move.
But it’s about time somebody took another look at BIOS. Thirty years?
Aren’t these the requirements for an OEM to add a pointless sticker to their machine saying “Windows 8 enabled” or “Windows 8 ready”?
I’m not convinced that it’s really a problem for a machine that isn’t being advertised as a Linux-capable box to present an obstacle to running splatnix on it — especially when that obstacle will, as far as anyone can tell, be entirely surmountable.
If you consider the modern-day “BIOS” as “the thing that boots your computer up,” as with, say, DOS, then I agree. There’s no particular reason not to run any number of Linuxen in virtual boxes.
It’d certainly beat grub2.
On the other hand, I think I agree with the freetards here. Do it better, but at least do it openly.
It’s not like these morons stand a chance of catching up.
I thought VMs and USB sticks were for running Linux? Why in Fv
I’d like a BIOS that didn’t show a crap tonne of ugly 640×480 text when it booted. And preferably not some ugly low res ASUS splash screen either.
I shouldn’t have to wait to be all the way into Windows just to have native resolution graphics.
No, but seriously.
That Other OS comes free with the boxen.
It works perfectly well at getting all that naughty hardware stuff in sync.
And now, and now …
PURPLE FLAMING STEAMS OF TURD! YOUR DESKTOP OR MINE? IS THAT A SUPERSONIC BOOM IN YOUR POCKET, OR ARE YOU JUST DISGUSTED TO SEE ME?
NICE X, SHAME ABOUT THE WHY.
I HAVE NOTHING AGAINST THE GIMP. SOME OF MY BEST FRIENDS ARE GIMPS.
OPEN OFFICE? I PREDICT A RIOT.
... and then you kill the virtual OS and go on with your life.
Everybody needs a little bit of pointless fantasy now and again.
I love how the loons think Linux is Microsoft’s competition; It’s not. Apple is their competition on the desktop, and Google is their competition online.
Can someone explain to me the point of this secure-booting thingy? Have there been any widespread malware that messed with the MBR in the last decade?
Oh, and Google is already doing this with chromebooks (with a physical switch to disable it), so it can’t be evil, right?
http://www.securelist.com/en/analysis/204792157/TDSS_TDL_4
In order to break chain of trust on x64 systems it HAS TO start in MBR.
It’s also one of the biggest botnets: “... in just the first three months of 2011 alone, TDL-4 infected 4,524,488 computers around the world.”
Yes, most of those are fake antiviruses, unpatched systems and so on, still Apple’s way of ignoring the issue (and blaming users) doesn’t work here – everybody would blame Microsoft anyways.
“I love how the loons think Linux is Microsoft’s competition; It’s not. Apple is their competition on the desktop, and Google is their competition online.”
I understand your point, but Microsoft has “encourage” this thinking actively. Either Microsoft has(is?) been paranoid or it was(is?) true. Sure, it probably has more to do with the impact of Linux servers, hence the still existing. even though a lot more polished, “Get the facts” page. Still the boarders between real and imaginary threat becomes hazy when the overall competition isn’t as easy as in the past: server and desktop.
Anyway, we on the outside will always know best!
...
Out of curiosity: what big popular on-line services run on top of Windows? I’m not challenging anyone with this question.
“What big popular on-line services run on top of Windows?”
GoDaddy? Just off the top of my head that one:
http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph?site=godaddy.com
I guess some guy whose job is to admin Windows systems from Linux (right tools for the job, people!) would probably know better.
“Out of curiosity: what big popular on-line services run on top of Windows? I’m not challenging anyone with this question.”
You can’t get accurate stats because they run BehindLinuxBasedLoadBalancer™.
I’m relatively sure that Bing does …
And to my great chagrin (since I’m currently dealing with the bugger) so does MSN.
Why this fascination with “popular online services,” anyway? Does it matter whether Target runs their online sales through Windows servers (they do), or just their back-office work? And where does the one begin and the other one end? I could envisage a perfectly sensible combination of redundant LAMP stacks on Red Hat doing nothing but serving up requests to an IIS (or Oracle or whatever) database sitting in a datacenter somewhere.
It’s not like us M$ shills care whether the OS runs on everything from toasters to supercomputers. As TMR never tires of saying, you use the right tools for the job.
No special fascination here, but neither am I indifferent. It’s simply interesting to see how the industry evolves.
Does it matter that 90+ percent of desktop computers run Windows?
No, really, when does market share ever matter?
Well, that wasn’t really my point.
Thinking about it, I don’t know that “hosting popular online services” is a particularly appealing business goal. Look at Solaris and “the network is the computer.” It worked perfectly well until the dot-com bubble burst, and then they couldn’t shift the stuff for love or money.
Similarly, you could be going gangbusters in partnership with Facebook and Twitter today, but tomorrow? Who knows?
It is an interesting question, though. I wonder how many start-ups (I think we’re basically talking start-ups here) choose a server technology based on prior beliefs, and how many spend any time looking into the question?
And would a VC look down his/her nose at a startup that hosts its services on Windows servers?
(You could actually ask that same question of, say, Debian servers or CentOS servers or even *BSD servers…)
Well, the common belief among start-ups is that with Linux, you can “scale” (don’t ask what that means) without paying extra money to Microsoft.
It’s not like they have to buy new hardware to scale or anything. Microsoft is the only barrier between them and scaling.
“The OEMs know darn well that while not that many companies will switch out Windows for Linux, a lot of them will switch out Windows 8 for Windows 7 or even XP.”
O rite. They know.
Why would they switch out Win8 for Win7? I thought these were service both just vista service packs ;)
I also like the subtle double speak, admitting that Windows 7 is, in fact, a good OS. This, despite all of SJVNs rantings that it wasn’t.
@Administrator:
don’t forget that Vista was really just a service pack to XP which was a service pack to 98.
What nobody mentioned either, Microsoft bans Windows loaders with this, OH MY!!! how dare they?!
I don’t think Kurkos (Yarr, matey!) will mind much.
It’s not like you can’t extend the “trial” period indefinitely already, now is it.
It’s how they “activate” Office 2010 after all.
@Digital and Admin
Win98 was just a service pack to MS-DOS.
—————————————
So really, what’s the difference between WinMetro and MS-DOS? Anything I should know about? Any noteworthy feature?
;)
http://j.mp/qeve7c
Nope, Linux users will never figure out how to disable SecureBoot. Mafia$oft will stop at nothing to enslave the world.
(from http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/09/22/protecting-the-pre-os-environment-with-uefi.aspx )
The question is, how much will Mafia$oft pay OEMs to ensure that Linux is unbootable on all future computers. The answer is A LOT. They WILL try to do this, if they can get away with it.
This is a GRUB/GPLv3 problem. Linux will be able to boot perfectly, just with the MS bootloader or LILO.
I think virtualization makes that impossible, Adam.
Yes, thanks. I believe I made that point about virtualisation === BIOS (for all the PHP fanbois out there) a little earlier.
Adam’s point is exquisite in its unusual exposure of a hostage to fortune, however. The little lad is losing his marbles.
I do, so look forward to your evidence in the coming months, Adam, to back up your assertion that Microsoft will pay OEMs to “lock down” their computers.
This one is full of giggles.
The whole thing is about not allowing computer stores that are also OEMs to sell OEM copies of Windows without a new computer, a practice that‘s much more common than you think outside the US. You purchase the OEM copy, plus a blank CD so the system “sees“ the OEM copy was sold with “new hardware“, and voila! You ‘ve just bought an original copy of windows 7 home premium for only 100 euros. This is how i got my Windows 7.
“As TMR never tires of saying, you use the right tools for the job.”
“Right tools for the job”? Are you assuming that KimTjik has the faintest idea just what the right tools are supposed to be for his job?
I mean, seriously, servicing Windows machines from Linux? If what he said at Piestar was indeed true, then that’s probably one of the most awkward things I had heard people doing at a workplace aside from farting in an elevator full of co-workers. In fact, I doubt there is really much at all you can access on Windows Server 2008 from Linux particularly when the install in question is Server Core. This is, of course, assuming that KimTjik knows how Server Core install works or even what it is supposed to look like.
“The whole thing is about not allowing computer stores that are also OEMs to sell OEM copies of Windows without a new computer”.
How? Any authorized reseller can sell you OEM Windows licenses as long as your purchase involves a motherborad, a CPU and a hard drive. Unless you are suggesting that there is any kind of feasibility in forcing parts dealers to install public keys issued by Microsoft to their entire inventories of motherboards, I don’t see how that’s supposed to make even a lick of sense.
I’ve never heard of a company managing Windows workstations from a Linux server, but apparently, some people actually do that. Otherwise this thing wouldn’t exist: http://www.turnkeylinux.org/domain-controller
I’m still confused about why on earth anyone would do that.
I would imagine that what Kim means is that he/she runs PuTTy through XMing and has a whole screed of Powershell scripts (although, as I’ve pointed out, you could contort yourself into Perl if you so wish) to handle the actual admin tasks … on the Windows Server itself.
It more or less has to be something like that. Arguably, you could even construct a “thin client” Qt GUI to spit out the parameters for the scripts.
Heck, you could even use cron to automate things.
Granted, you’d have to be somewhat, er, fixated on your tool-set of choice, but it’s a perfectly feasible waste of everybody’s time. Particularly the bloke who comes after you.
@IMGX64:
Sorry, post collision.
You are of course right. The central question is, why would any sane company allow you to do that?
http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/5552.html
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