The model is a Samsung 350V.
Link to laptop spec
Nothing is documented for this box, and that's what's slowing me down. I have collected some tools
/tmp/OVMF-0.1+r13902-1.1.x86_64.txz
/tmp/efitools-0.1.1-1.1.x86_64.txz
/tmp/lcab-1.0-6.1.x86_64.txz
/tmp/osslsigncode-1.4-1.1.x86_64.txz
/tmp/gnu-efi-3.0q-34.1.x86_64.txz
/tmp/sbsigntools-0.6-1.2.x86_64.txz
Those packages are from rpms on suse's site. I'm going to rearrange slightly & install one big uefi_stuff package.
There's stuff you have to dump in /boot/efi. There's some UEFI index you have to add an entry to. Then if your BIOS writers were kind to you, there'll be a bootloader menu. If not, I dunno. Elilo only loads linux/unix. Apparently a lot can get stuck in as the .efi stuff if you're clever about it and your bios are OK. But the UEFI spec keeps changing and changing and what have I? i don't know. I'll stick those packages in and try following the docs in elilo, using slackware. I'm not hearing positive enough noises about ubuntu to make the switch.
The hugely irritating thing is that there is facility for a legacy os, but the world is silent on how to do that on a gpt disk. At this stage I really don't care about windows 8, but this is a warning to LXers not to buy laptops with windows 8 pre-installed.
After kernel 3.3, the kernel can masquerade as an efi application (done by adding junk in it's own rather roomy header) :-D. There's 3 boot options with secure boot disabled, & "Secure boot & legacy OS"set: Secure boot, cdrom & hard disk, apparently the BIOS/MBR option.
@arubin: I've already built kernel 3.6.10 at this stage with the secure boot thing enabled, and I can't use the usb boot because the @#$%! box doesn't support usb boot. But it has a hostname (RoseViolet) and I'm typing this from it under linux. I have the slackware dvd in the cdrom and I just type a line, and boot off that kernel for the moment.
@tommcd: Thanks for the distrowatch link and the update on Ubuntu. I developed a strong allergy to apt-* and found myself disliking and distrusting all 'update every night' distros like Fedora. I have posted here with bugs which were sorted by a fedora update which produced different errors but worked.