Linus Torvalds on Windows 8, UEFI, and Fedora

Microsoft has made it so that Windows 8 approved PC can only run Windows 8. Fedora Linux has forged a way around it, but not everyone like their approach. Torvalds gives his thoughts on the issue.

With Windows 8's UEFI take on secure boot there will be no easy way to boot Linux.

All Windows 8 licensed hardware will be shipping with secure boot enabled by default in their replacement for the BIOS, Unfied Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI). So far, so good, who doesn’t want more security? The fly in the soup is that by default only Windows 8 will run on these systems, so no Linux, no BSD, heck, no Windows XP for that matter. Fedora Linux, Red Hat’s community distribution, has found a way: sign up with Microsoft, via Verisign to make their own Windows 8 system compatible UEFI secure boot key. A lot of Linux people hate this compromise. Linus Torvalds, the father of Linux, has another take: “I’m certainly not a huge UEFI fan, but at the same time I see why you might want to have signed bootup etc. And if it’s only $99 to get a key for Fedora, I don’t see what the huge deal is.”

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