Samsung UEFI bug definitely not fixed

...I know little about it, other than it is supposed to replace the traditional BIOS start-up software and it is supposed to ensure that only Windows or Windows approved software has the UEFI "key" to allow installation of that software. (Them's as knows all about it can correct me on this.....please.)

However, the more I read about UEFI, the more I am determined to steer totally clear of its tentacles and (since I have no use for Windows whatsoever) to disable UEFI completely if I purchase a new laptop with UEFI present. Given what is happening, I think I'd also avoid Samsung like the plague. My impression so far remains what I got at first sight of this horrible situation: the present UEFI is designed to further Microsoft's attempts to control personal and corporate computers and block Linux uptake by the said computers.

If what is now being reported is correct, even Windows has problems with UEFI.....maybe UEFI wasn't such a good idea in the first place Microsoft ??

Just a 2c worth.

No Tony UEFI is actually very useful, it's SecrueBoot (TM) that extends UEFI that Microsoft has mandated that is bad.

Thanks Tracy.......me being me, I tend to lump it all together. So plain UEFI is a good thing, but the Secure Boot "Microsoft add-on" is the killer ? And they are two separate things ??

I would say that it's not even Secure Boot that's a problem, but the way it's been implemented.

Secure Boot implementation (esp. in "consumer grade" OEM motherboards/firmware) has been pushed somewhat faster than it's natural pace in an arbitrarily focused, tunnel-vision manner by Microsoft's participation in the standard and Microsoft's certification-program/co-marketing influence on the large OEMs.

Consequently (and, I believe, with malice aforethought) Secure Boot has developed in a distinctly sub-optimal manner, that tends to favour a "vendor's-choice" implementation of Secure Boot that might better be called "Restricted Boot", which can make it arbitrarily difficult and inconvenient for the user to designate which OSs can (or cannot) boot securely (or at all) on that hardware -- this distinctly favours OEM control over the choice of system OS, rather than the user's free, practical control over their own hardware.

A sensible implementation of Secure Boot, that lets the actual owner easily decide what code may or may not boot on his/her own system, would not be objectionable.

(/pedant)

Seen on Hacker News (http://news.ycombinator.com/news):

Samsung laptop bug is not Linux specific (dreamwidth.org) http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/22855.html

...The writer replicated the lockup bug with Windows. Further investigation, made possible by Linux' panic response, showed that the bug is in how the Samsung code violates the spec.

Thanks, tracyanne -- once you separate UEFI from Secure Boot, you realize that the traditional BIOS needed to go, but Secure Boot at this point is more trouble than it's worth.