Want to dual boot Mint and Win 8 - UEFI questions

[ElectricRider]

Srs5694,

When I try the command: sudo efibootmgr -o 0000,0001,3001,3000,3002,2001,2002,2003 - I get an error that says: boot entry 2003 does not exist

When I try the command: sudo mvrefind /boot/efi/EFI/refind /boot/efi/EFI/Microsoft/Boot - I get an error that says: sudo: mvrefind: command not found.

I would have tried to do it from the Windows commands you gave me but i don't know if the above means there is something wrong with rEFInd in my installation or not so i thought better of trying that solution yet. I don't have any firmware updates just now.. in fact, HP released several bios updates over the last few weeks and I installed them each as I got them from the HP Support Assistant tool. Even though they verified as installing properly, they were messed up. This is what was causing me not to be able to disable Secure Boot as talked about earlier. I had to roll back the bios to factory default and reinstall all of the updates again. It was only after that was I suddenly able to disable Secure Boot and not have bios kick me out of UEFI mode.

Do you think It's o.k. for me to go ahead and try the windows commands to fix the problem or try something else?

You know reading through this thread and the give and take between you and Viking777 makes me believe UEFI is no where near ready for prime time. I love the faster hardware access but if it's so buggy it's not worth using. Interesting video on that here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2aq5M3Q76U
I'm amazed with your ability to work with UEFI and very much appreciate the expert help. You've got some great links on your website, love your sci-fi book section.

[perduta]

Wow... reading all this I'm glad my computer doesn't have UEFI.
It's just a another scam by the big companies IMO:

The good old bios has never needed to do anything other than load the first few sectors (a.k.a Master Boot Record or MBR) of your main drive (which ever you have selected) and run that... it is usually a boot loader (like Grub) which can then be configured and responsible to do whatever is needed because it is SOFTware and not HARDware.

Initializing the rest of the hardware isn't necessary until the main OS itself loads so their whole excuse for introducing it is BS! I don't want my PC boot to be controlled over a network. In fact I bet UEFI will soon spawn a new generation of boot viruses.

Note: It reminds me of...

Been here, done that...

DontPayForThis.png (382.91 KiB) Viewed 444 times

... when I was traveling and I bought a sim card so I could use my mobile phone on a local network and then the idiots locked my mobile to their network and I had to have it unlocked when I went back home... it sounds like region specific DvD's that I paid good money for but can't play... it sounds like the NTSC/PAL nonsense on the GameBoy even though it doesn't have anything to do with analog television standards... and so on. Techno trash designed by corporate committees!

[srs5694]

When I try the command: sudo efibootmgr -o 0000,0001,3001,3000,3002,2001,2002,2003 - I get an error that says: boot entry 2003 does not exist

Then omit it from the list. FWIW, I cut-and-pasted those entries from your existing BootOrder, as reported by "efibootmgr -v", then prepended "0000,0001". Either there was a typo in what you posted or there's something odd in your existing configuration, since 2003 was definitely in the BootOrder -- although when I looked more closely, I see that 2003 isn't an available entry.

When I try the command: sudo mvrefind /boot/efi/EFI/refind /boot/efi/EFI/Microsoft/Boot - I get an error that says: sudo: mvrefind: command not found.

This one's my mistake -- it should be "mvrefind.sh", not "mvrefind".

Do you think It's o.k. for me to go ahead and try the windows commands to fix the problem or try something else?

I suggest trying efibootmgr again first.

You know reading through this thread and the give and take between you and Viking777 makes me believe UEFI is no where near ready for prime time. I love the faster hardware access but if it's so buggy it's not worth using.

Unfortunately, your opinion is justified. My suspicion is that hardware vendors put off implementing EFI for too long and then did a rush job, thus introducing too many bugs and quirks. I'm still hopeful that things will improve. Unfortunately, given that most vendors stop releasing firmware updates a few months after introducing the hardware, the computers and motherboards introduced in the last year or two will probably have buggy firmware forever.

[ElectricRider]

If hardware vendors did a rush job I suspect it was because someone at Microsoft was doing the pushing as they are the first OS developer to widely require it's use.

On pasting the command: sudo mvrefind.sh /boot/efi/EFI/refind /boot/efi/EFI/Microsoft/Boot – I get the error: mv: cannot stat `/efi/microsoft/boot/bootmgfw.efi': No such file or directory. This is exactly the way I pasted it, I know because I copied and pasted this from the terminal and before that I copied it from your message above and just manually replaced mvrefind with mvrefind.sh.

Seems I must have done something to tick off the Linux gods this week LOL.
I was hoping I could get this all working right and also get Vector working in UEFI with secure boot disabled so I could help my friends at Vector get that installed under UEFI. I like Mint when i need a fuller distro and i like Vector when i need to run video intensive apps because of all the resources it has available from being so light. I figured running them under UEFI would just make everything run faster.

I'm willing to try one or two more suggestions if you have any before I give up and go back to Legacy Bios mode.

[ElectricRider]

Why do I get all the strange stuff? LOL

I haven't done anything to the system at all since my last post above in which things still didn't work. The wife and I had to sit outside of our condo for a few hours in 50 degree temps and high winds making it feel like 40 because they were doing some emergency work on the place. We brought our computers out to keep us company. Suddenly, my mouse froze so I gave it a hard boot by hitting the on/off button. I was in Windows 8 at the time. Imagine my surprise when It booted directly into the beautiful rEFInd boot screen. I rebooted several times to test it, and it always booted directly into rEFInd. However unlike choosing rEFInd from the boot menu options - I could not boot into Windows. On choosing the Windows option to boot, rEFInd would show me a screen for a brief few seconds then return to the boot GUI. That screen has a blue bar that says, " rEFInd Booting OS, under that it says, Starting bootmgfw.efi and under that it says, Using load options with two square dots next to the words then it returns to the boot GUI screen. I had to re-enable Secure Boot to get my PC to ignore rEFInd and boot back into Windows. rEFInd would load into Mint - or so I thought. Even though I had installed Mint last via the UBS stick I made with Unetbootin, I had totally forgot there was also a Mint DVD in my DVD drive. On discovering this I removed the disk and Mint would no longer boot at all. It must have been booting off of that disk every time it booted into Mint and I didn't realize it. So, Somehow, I think I messed up the install and didn't know it until now. This may help to explain some odd things that have been happening.

[viking777]

@srs

If you can get an emergency system to boot in EFI mode (I know you've had problems with this in the past -- you say most of your CD-based boots lack a /sys/firmware/efi directory), you could try efibootmgr from there, which would help narrow down the possible causes. If another kernel and another significantly different distribution (say, Fedora 18) produces a working efibootmgr program, then you can rule out a firmware bug; but if such a distribution produces the same effect, configuration issues seem less likely to be a cause.

Thanks once again for the reply. I have a Fedora 17 live cd so I booted from that. This is most definitely a Uefi disk and boot:

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[liveuser@localhost ~]$ ls /sys/firmware
acpi  dmi  efi  memmap
[liveuser@localhost ~]$


efibootmgr is installed:

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whereis efibootmgr
efibootmgr: /sbin/efibootmgr /usr/sbin/efibootmgr /usr/share/man/man8/efibootmgr.8.gz
[liveuser@localhost ~]$

When run it produces no errors otoh it produces no output either:

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[liveuser@localhost ~]$ su
[root@localhost liveuser]# efibootmgr
[root@localhost liveuser]#

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[root@localhost liveuser]# efibootmgr -v
[root@localhost liveuser]#

I thought this may be because of the live environment so I ran

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efibootmgr -d

With the following addresses - /dev/sr0, /run/initramfs/live, /dev/mapper/live-rw, /, /sys/kernel/config

No output was ever produced.

I have no idea what conclusions to draw from that.

BTW. Ignore my reports of no /sys/firmware/efi in my previously booted live cd's. They do not have this directory because they are not Uefi images. I have no idea why, because they are very recent live images of Ubuntu 12.10 and Mint14 64bit which is supposed to be Uefi capable. However in the case of these images they contain no EFI directories/files anywhere (either before or after booting them) so can never produce a Uefi boot. This is a problem with the images not with my computer.

[srs5694]

Suddenly, my mouse froze so I gave it a hard boot by hitting the on/off button. I was in Windows 8 at the time. Imagine my surprise when It booted directly into the beautiful rEFInd boot screen. I rebooted several times to test it, and it always booted directly into rEFInd. However unlike choosing rEFInd from the boot menu options - I could not boot into Windows. On choosing the Windows option to boot, rEFInd would show me a screen for a brief few seconds then return to the boot GUI.

My initial guess is that you've now got rEFInd installed twice, once under its "proper" name (EFI/refind/refind_x64.efi) and once under the Windows name (EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi). If this is correct, then when you select the Windows icon and get back to rEFInd, the Windows icon will disappear and be replaced with a generic icon for launching EFI/refind/refind_x64.efi. If this is correct, then you need to locate the real Windows boot loader and rename it as EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi. You haven't mentioned this icon change, though, and the fact that enabling Secure Boot gets you booting straight into Windows is puzzling if this explanation is correct.

Another possibility is that rEFInd is set up as EFI/refind/refind_x64.efi and the Windows boot loader is at EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi, but that there's some problem that's preventing rEFInd from launching Windows. The strange thing about this is that you'd normally get a cryptic error message and a prompt to press a key to continue when rEFInd encounters problems launching a boot loader, and you haven't described such an error message. I also can't see why the firmware would be able to launch the Windows boot loader (with Secure Boot active) when rEFInd can't.

A third possibility is that if you'd tried both the mvrefind.sh and the Windows-based repair, the Windows boot loader might be launching partway and then redirecting the boot process to rEFInd, which might then be redirecting the boot process back to the Windows boot loader in a cycle when you select Windows, which then re-launches. I've never heard of this happening, though. If this is correct, then reversing the mvrefind.sh command might fix the problem.

Perhaps you could shed some light on the issue by writing down the text under each icon when you highlight it. In most cases, the text will read something like "Boot X from Y", where X is a filename or OS description and Y is a volume name or description. Do this both for the initial version of rEFInd and for the version that appears when you try to launch Windows.

Also, typing "sudo efibootmgr -v" at a shell prompt should produce useful diagnostic information, so try that and post the results here.

rEFInd would load into Mint - or so I thought. Even though I had installed Mint last via the UBS stick I made with Unetbootin, I had totally forgot there was also a Mint DVD in my DVD drive. On discovering this I removed the disk and Mint would no longer boot at all. It must have been booting off of that disk every time it booted into Mint and I didn't realize it.

Details about the icons and loader descriptions can be informative about this. rEFInd includes device "badges" in its OS icons. These badges are small icons in the lower-right corner of the OS icon, and they denote internal hard disks, external hard disks, and optical discs. If the Mint icon you selected that you initially thought launched your installed Mint had an optical disc badge, then you were launching from the optical disc. If it had a hard disk icon, then you were launching either GRUB or a Linux kernel from the hard disk, but that could conceivably have been configured to use the optical disc's installation of Mint.

Also, rEFInd will normally show either a Linux penguin or a Mint icon for a Mint installation. If the icon is a generic gray icon, then that denotes a BIOS-mode boot.

You can take a screen shot within rEFInd by pressing F10. The result is a file on the ESP called screenshot.bmp. Unfortunately, you can take just one screen shot; if you take two, the second one overwrites the first. Still, this can be useful if you want to show me the icons and selection text.

[srs5694]

Thanks once again for the reply. I have a Fedora 17 live cd so I booted from that. This is most definitely a Uefi disk and boot:

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[liveuser@localhost ~]$ ls /sys/firmware
acpi  dmi  efi  memmap
[liveuser@localhost ~]$


efibootmgr is installed:

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whereis efibootmgr
efibootmgr: /sbin/efibootmgr /usr/sbin/efibootmgr /usr/share/man/man8/efibootmgr.8.gz
[liveuser@localhost ~]$

When run it produces no errors otoh it produces no output either:

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[liveuser@localhost ~]$ su
[root@localhost liveuser]# efibootmgr
[root@localhost liveuser]#

This is looking more and more like a buggy firmware, or perhaps a bug in efibootmgr or even the Linux kernel that's common across multiple distributions' builds. Since this problem is divering significantly from ElectricRider's, and is no longer producing information that's informative about EFI generally, I recommend you start a new thread about if if you care to pursue it. Title it something like "EFI: /sys/firmware efi present but efibootmgr non-functional." I'm afraid I'm out of ideas about it now, though, aside from the possibility that it's a firmware bug.

[ElectricRider]

I don't see how it could be installed twice. I only tried to install rEFInd twice and the first time which was from a live USB failed. After I was able to boot into the hard drive installation of Mint for the first time I installed rEFInd via the debian binary and I haven't run that installer again.

I never did try both solutions to repair rEFInd through the mvrefind.sh commands and the Windows repair option you gave me. I only tried the mvrefind.sh (which failed) and not the Windows commands.

Here is the output of sudo efibootmgr -v ( I booted into Mint via the Kingston USB with secure boot disabled and from the mint icon ( the second icon in the list below after Microsoft) in rEfind.

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BootCurrent: 0003

Timeout: 0 seconds

BootOrder: 3003,3001,3002,2001,2002,2003

Boot0000* USB Hard Drive (UEFI) - KingstonDataTraveler 2.0   ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(10,0)USB(3,0)HD(1,80,3bb780,04030201)RC

Boot0001* rEFInd Boot Manager   HD(1,c8800,82000,0d310f28-c702-4bb9-932d-bfc5f47a48bb)File(\efi\microsoft\boot\bootmgfw.efi)

Boot0002* linuxmint   HD(1,c8800,82000,0d310f28-c702-4bb9-932d-bfc5f47a48bb)File(\EFI\linuxmint\grubx64.efi)

Boot0003* Windows Boot Manager   HD(2,c8800,82000,0d310f28-c702-4bb9-932d-bfc5f47a48bb)File(\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi)WINDOWS.........x...B.C.D.O.B.J.E.C.T.=.{.9.d.e.a.8.6.2.c.-.5.c.d.d.-.4.e.7.0.-.a.c.c.1.-.f.3.2.b.3.4.4.d.4.7.9.5.}...0................

Boot2001* USB Drive (UEFI)   RC

Boot2002* Internal CD/DVD ROM Drive (UEFI)   RC

Boot3000* Internal Hard Disk or Solid State Disk   RC

Boot3001* Internal Hard Disk or Solid State Disk   RC

Boot3002* Internal Hard Disk or Solid State Disk   RC

Boot3003* Internal Hard Disk or Solid State Disk   RC

Here are the results of the written statements under each icon in rEFInd. They are exactly the same no matter if i boot to rEFInd from the boot options menu and choose rEFInd boot manager with Secure Boot enabled, or if I boot into rEFInd with secure boot disabled and let the machine start rEFInd by default on boot by itself. ( I have not tried this from Legacy Bios mode. I haven't used Legacy Bios mode since I last installed Mint from the USB and we started working on this)

Microsoft Icon - Boot Microsoft EFI boot from 256 MIB Fat Volume
LinuxMint Icon - Boot EFI\LinuxMint\grubx64.efi from 256 MIB Fat Volume
3 cubes icon - Boot Fallback bootloader from 256 MIB Fat Volume
Penguin 1 icon - Boot vmlinuz-3.5.0-17-generic from Fat 238 volume
Penguin 2 icon - Boot vmlinuz from 9 gig ext4 volume
Penguin 3 icon - Boot vmlinuz-3.5.0-17-generic from 9 gig ext4 volume
USB 1 icon - Boot EFI\boot\grubx64.efi from Kingston
USB 2 icon - Boot Fallback boot loader from Kingston

Here is the screenshot of the rEFInd boot manager screen. http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/4497 ... hotyld.png

You may want to review this post on page two to see exactly how I installed Mint: viewtopic.php?p=680583#p680583

[srs5694]

ElectricRider,

I can tell certain things from the efibootmgr output and other details you've posted:

• There are two NVRAM entries for booting EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi. One is labeled "rEFInd Boot Manager" and the other is labeled "Windows Boot Manager." This suggests that the mvrefind.sh command did succeed, at least partially.
• Linux seems to have booted via the second of those two entries, which again suggests that it actually holds a copy of rEFInd.
• Neither of those two entries is in the BootOrder list, which means in theory that they'd never be run. My guess is that one of the "Internal hard disk or solid state disk" entries, which are in the list, is actually redirecting the boot process. Some computer manufacturers seem to enjoy creating such complex setups for some reason.
• I don't see evidence of a "real" bootmgfw.efi (Windows boot loader) file, so perhaps it was overwritten or moved to some unusual location that's still somehow being accessed by the firmware when you enable Secure Boot.

In theory, you should be able to boot Linux from rEFInd in either of two ways:

• Select the GRUB entry (the one with the Mint icon). This should launch GRUB, which should then launch Mint (perhaps automatically, perhaps only after you select Mint in a GRUB menu).
• Select any of the vmlinuz entries; however, it's possible that one or more of them will be non-functional. Also, you may need to enter your root filesystem information, at least for now. You can do this by hitting either F2 or Insert twice after you highlight the option. This will bring up a crude text-mode line editor. Add "ro root=/dev/sda{x}" to the boot options, changing "/dev/sda{x}" to your Linux root partition identifier, such as "/dev/sda4" or "/dev/sda7". If you boot successfully, running the mkrlconf.sh script that comes with rEFInd will create a configuration file that should make it possible to boot without adding these extra options.

In practice, there are any number of possible problems with GRUB configuration and/or your Linux installation that could prevent either option from working. Nonetheless, both are worth trying.

Windows could be a little tougher, since you need to locate the Windows bootmgfw.efi file. Try this in your on-disk Linux installation to find likely candidates:

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find /boot/efi -iname "bootmgfw*"


The file you want may be renamed, perhaps with a different or extra extension. If you find something that looks like a good candidate, copy it somewhere convenient on the ESP and be sure its filename ends in ".efi". For instance, you might copy it to /boot/efi/EFI/win/windows.efi, at least as a test. (You'll need to create that directory first.) That option should then appear in the rEFInd menu. It's also possible that you'll find the file somewhere other than your ESP, if your manufacturer is doing something weird. Thus, you could look for another FAT partition on your hard disk and look for the file there.

If you can't find the "real" bootmgfw.efi, try posting the complete file listing of your ESP. Typing "ls -R /boot/efi" in Linux should produce that information. A similar command could work on other FAT partitions; you just need to substitute their mount points. The boot loader is bound to be lurking somewhere, otherwise you wouldn't be able to boot Windows at all.

[ElectricRider]

The output of of: find /boot/efi -iname "bootmgfw*" I get a long list of files such as: /boot/efi/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bg-BG/bootmgfw.efi.mui. In this list the most likely candidates were: /boot/efi/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi and /boot/efi/EFI/HP/boot/bootmgfw.efi. However under /boot/efi/EFI/ I could not create a Win folder.

I think this is starting to get out of my comfort zone so I have elected to remove rEFInd and wipe the installation and start over in with a fresh Mint install in Legacy Bios mode. I do appreciate your help and time and hope that something in our exchange will help you in the future. I would hate to think this was a total waste of your time. You really have been wonderful in helping me with these and I thank you deeply.

[styckx]

Wow... reading all this I'm glad my computer doesn't have UEFI.

Just an FYI. UEFI is a graphical mouse driven bios interface.. Secureboot is a protocol of that interface that can be optionally used in conjunction with Windows 8. Secureboot is only going to bother anyone with a pre-built (brick and mortar store) off the shelf Windows 8 PC.. Anyone building their own etc can buy a UEFI based motherboard and be perfectly fine still.. UEFI is awesome and shouldn't be something a DIY PC builder should be afraid of.

[srs5694]

The output of of: find /boot/efi -iname "bootmgfw*" I get a long list of files such as: /boot/efi/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bg-BG/bootmgfw.efi.mui. In this list the most likely candidates were: /boot/efi/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi and /boot/efi/EFI/HP/boot/bootmgfw.efi.

The former is probably rEFInd itself (renamed). The latter is likely what you need. If you haven't done anything with your installation, you can either copy the latter or edit the /boot/efi/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/refind.conf file: Uncomment the "also_scan_dirs" line and set it to "EFI/HP/boot".

However under /boot/efi/EFI/ I could not create a Win folder.

That's probably a permissions issue: You need to use sudo to acquire root privileges to work in the /boot directory tree (including /boot/efi and its subdirectories).

I think this is starting to get out of my comfort zone so I have elected to remove rEFInd and wipe the installation and start over in with a fresh Mint install in Legacy Bios mode.

You'll just have more problems with that. Attempting to mix a UEFI-based Windows installation with a BIOS-mode Linux installation will not work smoothly. You'll need to use the firmware's primitive boot manager to switch between OSes, or you'll need to install rEFInd again to redirect from an EFI-mode boot to a BIOS-mode boot. (AFAIK, no other EFI boot loader can do that -- just some firmware implementations and rEFInd.)

[srs5694]

Just an FYI. UEFI is a graphical mouse driven bios interface..

That's not really true. Although some UEFI implementations do include mouse support and some GUI elements, that's not true of all of them. I've got three UEFI-based PCs, and only one of them has mouse support in its user interface; the other two have traditional text-mode/keyboard interfaces.

Furthermore, UEFI is not BIOS; UEFI is the replacement for BIOS. (Some primitive implementations use a BIOS as a layer beneath UEFI, though.) Unfortunately, computer manufacturers are using the term "BIOS" to apply to their (U)EFI implementations, but technically, "BIOS" refers to the 1980s-style firmware that's rapidly approaching extinction, at least on new computers. EFI follows entirely different rules and is very different. The Wikipedia article on UEFI covers this in more detail.

EFI (and its newer UEFI variant) is really a new way to boot computers, and it also provides some features that an OS can utilize once it's run. User interface differences, when they exist, are secondary at best. User interfaces are not even mentioned in the EFI spec, AFAIK.

Secureboot is a protocol of that interface that can be optionally used in conjunction with Windows 8. Secureboot is only going to bother anyone with a pre-built (brick and mortar store) off the shelf Windows 8 PC.. Anyone building their own etc can buy a UEFI based motherboard and be perfectly fine still.. UEFI is awesome and shouldn't be something a DIY PC builder should be afraid of.

Most bare motherboards that you buy today support Secure Boot. The biggest difference is that bare motherboards often ship with Secure Boot disabled, whereas computers that ship with Windows 8 will almost always ship with Secure Boot enabled. The settings for both can be changed. (In fact, Microsoft requires that users be able to disable Secure Boot on x86-64 PCs that bear a Windows 8 logo.)

[ElectricRider]

I haven't done anything to my system yet. It's my birthday today so i probably wont mess with this again till the weekend is over.

A Microsoft engineer I spoke to on another forum insists what we have are Bios based pc's with a very small amount of UEFI in it which he calls a UEFI interpreter. ( makes me think of Z machine interpreters we used to use to run Infocom text based adventure games) He said it's little more than a boot manager for systems that require UEFI. Talking to some other folks in the same thread, they say they have seen systems where more UEFI functions were unlocked ( by hacking, he was reading articles from http://www.bios-mods.com/) and says UEFI can have literally of hundreds of options that are locked out in our new UEFI systems - these are disabled on purpose so users can't break anything. I don't know which is more correct, the Microsoft engineer or the guy who says we have large UEFI systems with most of the functionality locked out. I have also read articles that say the reverse, that we have UEFI systems that have a bios layer installed. I suppose all of the above could be true depending on the OEM.

[srs5694]

A Microsoft engineer I spoke to on another forum insists what we have are Bios based pc's with a very small amount of UEFI in it which he calls a UEFI interpreter. ( makes me think of Z machine interpreters we used to use to run Infocom text based adventure games) He said it's little more than a boot manager for systems that require UEFI. Talking to some other folks in the same thread, they say they have seen systems where more UEFI functions were unlocked ( by hacking, he was reading articles from http://www.bios-mods.com/) and says UEFI can have literally of hundreds of options that are locked out in our new UEFI systems - these are disabled on purpose so users can't break anything. I don't know which is more correct, the Microsoft engineer or the guy who says we have large UEFI systems with most of the functionality locked out. I have also read articles that say the reverse, that we have UEFI systems that have a bios layer installed. I suppose all of the above could be true depending on the OEM.

All of the above can be true depending on the firmware implementation; however, the industry as a whole is moving toward more "pure" UEFI implementations and fewer implementations that are UEFI-atop-BIOS. The most extreme I know of in the latter category is Gigabyte's Hybrid EFI, which is awful. I don't have hard data, but my hunch is that most PCs that ship with Windows 8 are likely to have "pure" UEFI implementations with any BIOS/legacy support being provided by a Compatibility Support Module (CSM), which is essentially a "BIOS emulator," something like WINE or DOSEMU in Linux. Certainly a "pure" UEFI implementation is needed for "fast boot" functionality; that works, in large part, by cutting out the BIOS-mode initialization functions, which tend to slow down the startup process.

[grimdestripador]

I have a brand new HP desktop computer that came with Windows 8 and UEFI protected boot. I tried several different versions of Mint and Ubuntu with and without protected boot enabled and was not able to achieve an installation. I was also afraid of bricking (rendering unusable) the computer or creating dead partitions, which I have done multiple times on other computers. The solution is VirtualBox. It is free and works very well. Linux Mint 13 (Maya) 64 bit installed successfully and automatically set its screen size to match my 1920 x 1080 monitor. VirtualBox does not slow down the computer noticeably. An important advantage of VirtualBox is that if you do something wrong, it does not brick the computer or create a dead partition. You can delete an unwanted virtual machine and it is gone.

FUD casulty confirmed.

But is it really FUD if your hardware becomes inopperable like samsung's recent news outting.

[rickmagers]

I just bought a new Samsung 7 Chronos and can not load LMDE. I have used Linux Mint for 4 years and very disappointed. I just found this article:
http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/ ... 95332.html Do we know how and when this kernel fix will find its way to LMDE updates and the new LMDE?

[srs5694]

I just bought a new Samsung 7 Chronos and can not load LMDE. I have used Linux Mint for 4 years and very disappointed. I just found this article:
http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/ ... 95332.html Do we know how and when this kernel fix will find its way to LMDE updates and the new LMDE?

The bug referenced in the article to which you link doesn't cause boot failures; it causes the laptop to be bricked. Therefore, it's not the cause of your inability to boot Mint. Chances are that problem is related to Secure Boot, to a UEFI bug, or to a laptop that uses hardware that's too new for your kernel.

IMHO, your best option is to return the laptop and get something that poses no risk of being bricked. From what I've heard, the bricking problem is definitely Samsung's fault, so returning the product to protect yourself is definitely justifiable.

When you get a replacement from another manufacturer, you may still run into boot-time problems for any of the reasons I noted earlier. Secure Boot is particularly likely to be an issue, and disabling Secure Boot is the easiest workaround, although precisely how you do this varies from one computer to another.