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On 18/04/13 17:10, Neil Winchurst wrote: > Now that UEFI has had a chance to settle down I am wondering about the > state of play with Linux. I have not used Windows for years, so there > will be no question of my wanting to dual boot Linux with Windows. No > doubt there are some on the list who need/want to do just that. So can > anyone help with these questions please? > > My currents computers are two years old or more so they use the > 'old-fashioned' BIOS system. Will any future versions of the various > Linux distros expect UEFI and so not work with BIOS? No, this won't be an issue - Linux distros, unlike certain other popular end-user operating systems, are incredibly unlikely to mandate certain boot firmware requirements for the forseeable future. Linux in general already supports UEFI just fine and has all the necessary bits in place to boot and install perfectly happily on modern EFI systems or legacy BIOS boxes. You may end up having to jump through a couple of hoops to install on non-standard machines (Apple hardware and chromebooks spring to mind) but bearing in mind that for many years Linux has been booting and installing on Sun (openprom), IBM (custom Service Processors), HP (BCH) and countless other non-BIOS hardware systems I assure you that you don't need to worry about it suddenly not working on any architecture any time soon :] > > If I buy a new computer say in a year or so will it certainly be set > up for UEFI? Almost definitely - just about every one of the fifty or so new machines going through my hands in the last couple of months have been UEFI enabled. Don't forget, you can always turn off secure boot and enable "legacy BIOS mode": if you get a new win8 machine you will *have* to at least turn off secure boot to get your bog standard Linux distro installed although there has been some - highly controversial - steps towards enabling secure boot mode with Linux. > > If so, will that cause problems? The biggest single problem is bloody disk labels - several pretty advanced friends have been caught out by this recently. If you never use windows then this won't concern you but if you're a dual booter keep an eye on this. Basically, the old MSDOS style disk label isn't really the ideal choice any more, the modern GPT disk label is the way to go. However, windows versions less than 8/server 2012 are a bit schizophrenic about this and won't boot from a GPT disk without seriously ill-advised hackery (secondary disks can be GPT labelled though, and will be by default if you use the windows disk management utility to initialise what they call a "dynamic volume"). A brand new UEFI/secure boot/win8 machine *will* be GPT labelled and will have to most people an unfamiliar disk structure - several small utility partitions need to be present for the EFI code, etc. Where my friends have been getting bitten is receiving a new win8 machine with this kind of layout, which they then boot with a win7 installer. win7 will bitch about the unrecognised disk layout and refuse to install, until the partitioner is used to whack every single partition on disk and then a new one is created, at which point win7 installs fine to the half of the disk assigned for gaming (my friends will then usually install their linux distro to the second half of the disk - standard dual boot kind of setup). The problem here is that although this will actually create a perfectly working dual boot win7/linux system, the windows partitioner is too stupid to reinitialize the disk so it's left as a GPT disk label but without the characteristic partition layout - a MSDOS disk layout on a GPT labelled disk, but without the fake MSDOS structures in place that are demanded for this strange and undesirable combination. The problem will only rear it's head when further partitioning is required (say, adjusting the sizes of the linux and windows partitions) or other partition level operations need to be performed (booting from a linux medium and using DD to dump or clone partitions for example) as pretty much all partitioning programs, and certainly gparted, will barf on the incorrect disk format and refuse outright to work. The way around this is always to boot to a linux live medium first and use gparted to correctly whack the disk, create a new MSDOS disk label, and then do the install from win7. It's a weird but serious gotcha that almost everyone misses - someone else on this list (was it Phil?) ran into this problem very recently. > > I think there is a lot of mis-information out there and a lot of scare > stories. I have looked around the internet and am more that a little > confused. Are there any experts on the list who can clear things up > for me (and possibly for other members) please? It's nearly all scare-mongering crap Neil, don't worry about it at all. You don't even use windows so you have literally nothing to worry about. > > Thanks > > Neil > > Hope that clears it all up for you and anyone else who's interested. Personally I think UEFI is great when it's done right - after years of using 'proper' firmware on big Sun, Digital, SGI, etc iron, I've always hated the crappy, feature-poor archaic pile of crap that is the PC BIOS. Bloody good riddance I say. 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