[Discuss] Fighting UEFI

[Richard Pieri]

On 7/29/2012 8:11 AM, Jerry Feldman wrote:
> So far RedHat is the only Linux vendor that has signed an agreement with
> Microsoft so that Fedora 18 will install out of the box. (A discussion
> hs at http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/12368.html).

Canonical has a proposal for using Intel's efilinux loader, which is 
signed, to chain-load an unsigned secondary loader like GRUB2 or an 
unsigned kernel image:
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2012-June/035445.html

I like Canonical's approach.  It retains all of the benefits of the 
Secure Boot environment if you want them.  It provides a simple 
workaround in case an OEM mistakenly ships a computer that can't have 
Secure Boot disabled (and this *is* a mistake on x86 according to 
Microsoft's Windows 8 sticker requirements).  It lets you boot your own 
custom kernels and load binary blob drivers as desired without requiring 
a signing key of your own.  It doesn't compromise the key 
infrastructure.  Wins all around.

-- 
Rich P.