I sent the following question to Biostar support:

Their response was:

I'm not sure if they actually answered my question. I wasn't asking them which distros would run on the board. Is the BIOS on new boards preventing installation of Linux as a security feature, and if so can this be turned off? I looked at the manual for the board from their website and I didn't see an option for this. But I would be very surprised if they really did this and didn't allow a way to disable it. I'm assuming this would have created a big buzz in the Linux sphere, which I haven't seen. Have I missed something here, or are they simply being unhelpful by not answering my specific question?

The answer to your question is still unknown. The primary question seems to be whether BIOS makers will go to the trouble to make UEFI configurable in the BIOS. Pessimists think they will be too lazy or unaware to do so. Optimists are reserving judgment.

This ZDNET article seems to have some good links:

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-sourc...-and-free/9827

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"The UEFI BIOS does have security features to prevent malware from affecting the BIOS. We do not test Linux based operating systems on our products, so we cannot tell you which versions will work. Biostar motherboards are supported on Windows operating system only. Most desktop distros of Linux (including Ubuntu) will install properly on this motherboard."

It seems to me they answered it correctly.

Almost no system in the world is tested with linux.
They only warrant MS products.
They said they feel a common linux distro ought to work.

What they didn't say is that linux can't at the moment take advantage of a more secure boot or more secure access to restricted hard drive data. They also didn't exactly say how they implemented it but there still is no standard for many parts of a system. Bios implementation has always been odd.

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I appreciate both replies, but I'm still confused. Should I be comfortable buying this board? Is the problem a theoretical one which might occur down the road were I to update the bios? Is the problem fundamental to any board with UEFI BIOS, or might I get a different answer from Asus on this board? Or would I be better off trying to find a board with the same socket support which doesn't use UEFI? Part of why I like to build my own systems is to avoid the kinds of hardware/driver incompatibility which you can otherwise run into. Normally there is a better option which you can choose. Do you have any suggestions on better options?

Your best bet is to purchase hardware from this list: http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/

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IMO, you got a lame answer from biostar. Typical boilerplate 'we dont support linux' junk.

They should have known and told you the feature in UEFI that could cause problems- its called 'secure boot'.

Long discussion here-

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...on-now-908719/

I'm out of that discussion and wuill not go back, to many people saying that its 'a manufacturers choice', with an undercurrent of 'pick the right hardware and you wont have any problems'. Well, when the manufacturer gives you throwaway info like biostar did, how on earth are you meant make an informed choice?

Long story short- to get a windows 8 logo, systems must ship with 'secure boot' enabled. There doesnt have to be any way for users to diasable secure boot, or add the OS they want to run to the secure boot system. Part of the problem is that even if you do find a system with a way to disable secure boot or add the OS you want to run to secure boot, that could change after a BIOS update.

I dont know of any systems currently shipping with secure boot, but I havent really checked. Its possible that there are already systems on the shelf with secure boot. I would expect that if theer are any current motherboards with secure boot, there would have some way of disabling it.

You can try asus, they might give you a better reply. Or they might not. If asus actually give you a better reply, I'd buy one over the biostar, even if it costs more.

$%&$*% canonical. Most of that list is at the least obsolete, and in a lot of cases totally unavailable. Its also near enough to useless for anyone who wants to build their own system.

At least they have fixed some of the stuff I used to bitch about when I was on the ubuntu forum (now they actually list more of the hardware in the systems). Even though I was told, several times by mods/admins that 'the hardware list is fine as it is'. Which is typical ubuntu forums mods/admins, they sing from the sheet music provided by canonical.

No, as cascade9 explained it is not related to UEFI, but to Secure Boot.

This board does have an UEFI-BIOS, but not Secure Boot. Also, this board can boot in UEFI mode and (legacy) BIOS-emulation mode, so you should have no problem to run any distro on it.