On Wed, Jan 2, 2013 at 11:04 AM, ron minnich <rminnich@gmail.com> wrote:

On Wed, Jan 2, 2013 at 9:58 AM, Andrew Goodbody <ajg4tadpole@gmail.com> wrote:

> I am sure that it is the old story, most testing will be done against
> Windows. Anything more will be the exception. This is where the pressure
> needs to be put on the platform vendors as this is the part that they are
> responsible for.

Sorry, vendors don't have a pattern of paying attention to end user
sales issues such as "won't boot Linux". They are selling into a
market in which Linux is about 1% at best of sales. That's been the
common experience anyway, even at very large companies: BIOS issues
just don't get fixed.

Andrew, Ron, what's your take on http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/20916.html ?

Specifically:
"This is part of Windows 8's fast boot support - the keyboard may not be initialised until after the OS has started."

So the logic goes:

1. Secure Boot enabled and Win8 installed by the OEM

2. To access the BIOS, press F2/F8/DEL/whatever

3. "Fast boot" (hey! coreboot delivered on that first!) skips keyboard init

4. User is thus *forced* to use Win8's "hold down shift and restart" feature -- adding another barrier before a user can boot her own OS.

I think the biggest problem here is that the entire BIOS is made inaccessible, and only if Windows gives permission can you change that.

Regards,

David