Venus AUEB Forum

A Spanish association of Linux users today accused Microsoft of anti-competitive practices, charging that Windows 8's Secure Boot blocks users from installing rival operating systems on new PCs.

Hispalinux, which represents some 8,000 open-source users and developers in Spain, lodged a formal complaint with the European Commission, the EU's antitrust agency, early Tuesday, the group said in a blog post.

The association accused Microsoft of "obstruction," "unfair competition" and "irreparable damage to the European software industry" by locking new PCs to Windows 8 through the operating system's Secure Boot feature.

UEFI, or Unified Extensible Firmware Interface, is a replacement for the older BIOS boot technology built into PCs. UEFI is designed to protect PCs against some forms of malware, notably rootkits, by requiring a trusted key before booting the operating system.

Secure Boot is Microsoft's label for UEFI support in Windows 8; the company requires the new firmware to run the five-month-old OS, and provides the necessary key to computer makers, or OEMs (original equipment manufacturers). That effectively blocks non-Microsoft operating systems -- Linux, primarily -- from running on new Windows 8 machines without keys of their own or software tweaks.

The biggest Linux distributors -- including SUSE, Fedora and Canonical -- have come up with work-arounds of their own to deal with UEFI and Windows 8's. Small or home-built Linux distributions, however, have been locked out of those solutions, and have balked at the $50 one-time fee that Microsoft charges for a key.

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Αριωνας wrote:Σκέφτομαι να εγκαταστήσω τα Linux και να "παίξω" λίγο με αυτά. Μου το προτείνετε;

masaka wrote:Έχω κάνει dualboot με lubuntu, άλλα τελικά δε μου άρεσε και θέλω να δοκιμάσω κάτι καινούριο. Πώς μπορώ να το κάνω install? Πρέπει να σβήσω τα lubuntu από το δίσκο για να περάσω το καινούριο λειτουργικό?

DatName wrote:Hmm δοκιμασα καποια πραγματαοπως και αυτο που ειπες αλλα δυστυχως κολλαω παντα στο ιδιο σημειο
εκει που θα επρεπε να μου βγαλει τι ειδους installation προτιμαω, δεν μου το βγαζει και μου βγαζει αυτο το μνμ

εχω κανει ηδη ενα partition με 30 gb απο τα windows και το εχω σε FAT32 αλλα δεν βλεπει κανενα και τιποτα

,δεν ξερω τι αλλο να δοκιμασω καμια προταση ?

Spoiler: εμφάνιση/απόκρυψη

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