secure boot
 

planing to buy a new computer and....

is it true that it is possible to switch secure boot off? and are all new computer boards (right word?) with secure boot?

I have read somewhere that it can be a problem for linux

Ole

Secure boot can be turn off on intel x86 boards, but not ARM based tablets/netbooks running windows 8. Some distros have been able to load with secure boot off, not sure with distros does.

Also secure boot disable has cause windows to have issues too. Secure boot is a ridiculous idea from microsoft.

I can verify secure boot can be disabled and Linux Mint 14 can be installed on Asus laptops. To do so you need to turn off UEFI boot in the BIOS (or UEFI- or whatever we're supposed to call it now). I also enabled launch PXE OpRom, not sure if that makes a difference though.

Also, if you install without disabling the secure boot, the computer will not find Linux. BUT, if you boot from external media you can always select "boot from first hard drive" or something to that effect. May be a useful work around for an ARM system.

To correct that, the UEFI firmware must have an option to disable Secure Boot on x86 mainboards/systems that have the Windows 8 Logo certification. For all other x86 systems this option is not mandatory. It is somewhat ironic, but you get the best Linux compatibility when you buy hardware with Windows 8 logo.

A few of the distro's are able to just work.

See web page like this.
http://www.zdnet.com/more-experiment...on-7000014095/

"...I also ensured that UEFI Boot and Secure Boot were enabled, and Legacy Support was disabled. "

This is only needed for network booting, you can safely disable that on systems that boot from local media.