Linus Torvalds chimes in on Windows 8 and UEFI

Source.

 

"And if it’s only $99 to get a key for Fedora, I don’t see what the huge deal is."

Blimey, that's nearly 64 quid!

 

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It's a security feature. That's great, it prevents a class of rootkits that are a pain in the ass. I'm happy for it.

There's no getting around the fact that it's raising the bar for users to install the OS or forcing developers to pay money.

99 dollars is nothing for Fedora. It might be for someone else who wants to create a distro and considering how many distros are home grown that's a big deal.

Also worth noting is that a single hole in the kernel is a hole in the system, which allows an attacker to get to Windows via Linux. That's grounds for certificate revocation. Not exactly ideal as VeriSign may hold the keys but MS can withdraw that key any time it likes.

As Linus says in his original post, it's a great system for security but it can easily be abused.

 

As I understand it (plz correct me if Im wrong) all you have to do is to see that "secure boot" is turned off in "BIOS" (UEFI) and there is no problem installing any linux distro.
The problem occurs if windows 8 wont install or boot unless the "secure boot" is turned on as I see it. But maybe that is the case and why people are upset?
But even so, surely you can turn "secure boot" off any time you want to boot into or install linux? Its a bit annoying to have to do all that of course, but it is an option, right? At least for us who build our own computers, I guess OEM versions may (or not?) turn off the option to turn "secure boot" on and off?
Personally I dont care until the day I have to install Windows 8 to play the latest games or use some gadget, software whatever that I "must" have

 

No it isn't the case, that would be a seriously dumb business move by Microsoft considering the tiny percentage of people that actually have a UEFI board.