Some Windows Apps Make GRUB 2 Unbootable 429
KwahAG writes "Colin Watson, one of the Ubuntu developers, published in his blog information about Windows applications making GRUB 2 unbootable. Users of dual-boot Windows/Linux installations may face the problem, which boils down to particular Windows applications (Colin does not name them, but users point at least to HP ProtectTools, PC Angel, Adobe Flexnet) blindly overwriting hard disk content between the MBR and the first partition destroying information already stored there, in this particular case — the 'core image' of GRUB 2 (GRand Unified Bootloader) making the system unbootable."
I thought nothing was supposed to be there (Score:4, Interesting)
... and that's the reason why BIOS 'virus protection' blocks access to that portion of the hard drive. Too bad that DRM breaks everything once again and too bad the mainstream of users isn't affected by it.
Re:I thought nothing was supposed to be there (Score:5, Informative)
Nothing is supposed to be there except the user-installed system boot code, boot data, and hard drive parameters.
Third party software certainly has no business messing with Sector 0 or the boot blocks unless it gets explicit permission, advises users of the risks in messing with the boot block, prompts the user to back anything up that's there right now, and writes its bits only to the portion of the boot block that is provided for its required purpose.
It may detect bootloaders, and update their configuration, if the user accepts that, but bootloader configuration is generally stored on the boot volume not the boot block
Re:I thought nothing was supposed to be there (Score:4, Informative)
The "boot block" is precisely one sector right at the start of the fixed disk, with some space being taken up by the primary partition table, signature, etc. The problem is not Grub (and certain Windows software) writing to this area, but writing to unpartitioned space elsewhere on the drive.
This is as wrong as looking at some filesystem, discovering that certain free blocks are unlikely to be allocated, and then using that space for storage.
HP ProtectTools (Score:5, Funny)
Re:HP ProtectTools (Score:4, Interesting)
http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Operating-systems-and-software/New-laptop-harddrive-non-OEM-Vista-disk/m-p/314927 [hp.com]
WTF is the "embedding area"?! (Score:4, Interesting)
WTF is this "embedding area?" It sound like GRUB is misusing the disk geometry to find unused space and then getting upset that other programs do that too.
Googling for "embedding area" find that it's a term that GRUB 2 made up and that it's not really a part of anything. In fact, apparently this space doesn't even exist under EFI systems, and that this "embedding area" is an artifact from DOS.
So, basically, GRUB is misusing the disk to store information in a place it has no right to be touching, and then getting upset that other people make the same mistake. Genius.
Re:WTF is the "embedding area"?! (Score:5, Insightful)
It makes sense for a bootloader to place data and code outside of partitioned space. It makes more sense to place the code inside a partition, even if it's a one-track partition dedicated to the bootloader. If they collided with components of Windows' bootloader or FreeBSD's bootloader, or some pre-boot hard disk encryption software I'd have little sympathy for them.
On the other hand, user-level apps storing data on the hard disk outside of partitioned space is very bad mojo. They should not be doing that. Ever. Period.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
which goes to the question of whether or not some of these programs really count as user level. Is anti virus user level? Well it can be, but what about one that blocks rootkits? What about one that is trying do something crazy related to virtualization? What if HP just assumes you're either too stupid to use unbuntu on your computer or are smart enough to not use their terrible software anyway?
PC angel and HP protect conceivably live outside the OS level, well actually they do basically the same thing
Re:WTF is the "embedding area"?! (Score:5, Interesting)
> Though adobe in this one looks like they deserve to be slapped around a bit, if the conjecture is accurate.
Adobe deserve to be slapped around a bit (and then a bit more). Period.
Otherwise I think the problem is (again) the BIOS. It only loads the 1st sector to boot, when 63 sectors (or 2048 with EFI) are reserved. Back in the old days you could just fit some FAT16 code in there to find the DOS image - but only at the expense of error handling. Nowadays you have to load the next stage from a fixed position - and the only position that is certainly fixed are the other 62 sectors. So they are the logical place for a boot loader.
You could add a boot partition, but with only 4 partitions available, that would use up a very limited resource. And I guess even if you put a boot partition into the first 63 sectors (which is now perfectly possible), Adobe would still overwrite it (and Windows would possibly freak out).
Re:WTF is the "embedding area"?! (Score:5, Insightful)
It makes sense for a bootloader to place data and code outside of partitioned space. It makes more sense to place the code inside a partition, even if it's a one-track partition dedicated to the bootloader.
It would, if you could actually get more than four partitions on a hard drive with the 90+% of BIOSes which can't boot properly from a GPT drive.
My new laptop came with _THREE_ recovery partitions and a Windows partition, so I had to delete one of the recovery partitions to be able to install Linux at all... where would I get another partition for Grub to run from without deleting all the recovery data?
So the big problem is that we're still stuck with shitty MS-DOS disk formats from the 1980s.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
"where would I get another partition for Grub to run from without deleting all the recovery data?"
I just make recovery media and blow the old partitions away.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Which sucks for the warranty tech (sub contractor) who was not provided any diagnostic disks because the manufacturer expects the utility partition to still be there.
And that is just patently ridiculous. I simply cannot believe that users have accepted manufacturers saving a few pennies by not shipping a CD or DVD of the operating system.
That contractor either a. has a copy of the requisite media, or can get it or b. can't replace a defective hard drive. Lose the drive, lose the recovery data.
Re:WTF is the "embedding area"?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Bingo. It is absolutely wrong to put data outside of partitioned space, and it is insane to blame something else for your own bug. Indeed, one security measure when installing a new system might be to zero out all unpartitioned space and then make sure nothing is ever written to it - Grub makes this impossible.
Grub should use an existing partition to store all the bits which don't fit inside the MBR, following the lead of EFI system partitions if necessary but supporting various common filesystems otherwise. Instead they use an atrocious hack to try to make things look neat.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
We call that LILO.
Re:WTF is the "embedding area"?! (Score:5, Informative)
It's also called "GRUB with blocklists"
You can find more here [archlinux.org],
and in my other post [slashdot.org]
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Wait wait wait, I have to specify the specific blocks to load now?
No you don't. GRUB will compute the blocks and store them in the MBR. It's "unreliable" because if the file to be loaded is physically moved/modified, the loader will be broken.
I've written a toy partition bootloader over a weekend which was able in around 400 bytes to load and execute any file on a FAT filesystem.
I bet you mean that you wrote a program to which you gave the path of a COM file that would in turn write the MBR so it would load and execute that file. And it happened to work with your BIOS and the files you tried it with (did you try with files physically located after 8GiB ? on an old broken BIOS ?)
So what ? That's basically wha
Re:WTF is the "embedding area"?! (Score:5, Interesting)
It's the same thing LILO did, which is why most people use Grub now.
And the reason why is because the MBR is tiny, and has no room for code that reads say, ext4.
The MBR has no menu. The basic stuff is "find active partition, load first sector, jump to it". With Grub it's more like "load code from embedding area, run it". Which contains enough to read things like ext4 to load the rest.
Because there's no room for filesystem reading code in the MBR. Especially not for reading all the formats Linux supports at once (what if you want to boot from FAT, ext3 and zfs?)
If you're thinking grub should load the code from some fixed space in the Linux partition, then every single FS would have to agree to reserve that space. Including the ones like JFS that come from elsewhere.
In my understanding, a partition having a boot sector is a DOS convention, that other filesystems don't necessarily follow. I think 512 bytes at the start may be mostly guaranteed, but again, you're not going to read things like reiserfs in that little space, so you're back to having the same problem.
It can't read it from "other partition" because if there is a filesystem there, it has to understand it, and 446 bytes is not enough.
If you mean a special, reserved partition, then that reduces the number of primary partitions for other purposes to 3, which creates compatibility issues. And if there are 4 primary ones already, you're screwed.
Resuming: the way x86 computers boot sucks, and boot loaders have to be written with those constraints in mind. The whole "embedding area" is a horrible hack, but the alternatives have significant issues as well.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
There were many reasons to switch to grub. The limited namespace for bootable configurations was one: the old 1023 cylinder issue, where the entire partition containing LILO had to be within the first 1023 cylinders of the hard drive, which was why many Linuxes required a small first partition for "/boot", was another. The need to re-install the boot loader, every time you added a kernel to your boot list, was another.
I'm personally hoping for the Linuxbios project to progress and eliminate many of the lega
Re:WTF is the "embedding area"?! (Score:4, Informative)
What's wrong with FAT? Pretty much everything from space inefficiency to lack of permissions to filename restrictions to reliability issues, especially after unclean shutdowns.
Also GRUB's core.img already only supports one filesystem -- whichever one is /boot (which can be FAT, GRUB can do that as well), filesystem modules for other types if necessary are loaded directly from said /boot partition.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Why does your bootloader partition need to concern itself with space efficiency, permissions and filename restrictions?
This was done already, a separate /boot partition.
Everybody ended up hating that idea with a passion.
Re:WTF is the "embedding area"?! (Score:5, Insightful)
If it's wrong to put data outside of partitioned space, what are these user spaces apps doing writing there? I can see a pretty good case for boot loaders doing this (the comment below about the 4 partition limit is one). Why is a copyright/licensing program writing there (which is what Flexnet seems to be)?
What's to prevent one of these programs from overwriting the data another makes? How would you like it if every time you ran NewSuperGameWithDRM, Photoshop lost it's license and forced you to phone home to reconfirm it?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
There is really no good case for any program of any nature to write data into unpartitioned space. GRUB basically called dibs on the space and gave it their own flashy name (never heard of "embedding area"). Now that other programs are nulling out the space as it should not contain data, they're crying foul. GRUB should be placing the data it can't fit on the MBR into an existing partition, not mucking up unpartitioned space on the disk.
For situations like PC Angel doing this, PC Angel is designed to restor
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
A 512 byte sector (MBR) does not have enough space for code to read a filesystem. So either you waste a whole partition just for the next bootloader stage ... which in the days of MBR partitions, there were not enough available to do that ... or you just sequence the sectors after the MBR, which then gives enough space to load minimal filesystem read-only support. LILO can play tricks to fake raw sectors inside a filesystem, but that is a very fragile setup that breaks whenever the filesystem is changed.
I
Move along (Score:2)
I honestly hope there is a way to sue them, though I don't think there is.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Just proprietary companies fucking up some computers.
Does grub have any more reason to be there these other companies? It looks like nobody is supposed to be there... including grub.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Move along (Score:4, Informative)
Wrong, GRUB belongs in the MBR, not in some unpartioned space that is not supposed to be of use, if they have a problem with that, just keep that thing (GRUB) small or create a partition.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Wrong, GRUB belongs in the MBR, not in some unpartioned space that is not supposed to be of use, if they have a problem with that, just keep that thing (GRUB) small or create a partition.
How do you plan to boot from an arbitrary Linux partition using a 512-byte boot loader?
Re:Move along (Score:4, Informative)
The way most other boot loaders have done it (including the original GRUB). Put enough code in the MBR to load the rest of the code and config out of a second location. The smart ones actually use a real partition for that, though, so no one overwrites it.
Re:Move along (Score:5, Interesting)
Heh, funnily enough that's exactly what Windows 7 does. If you install it to an empty drive, it'll create two partitions - one small one (a couple hundred megs?) for the boot loader, and the rest for Windows itself.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Yeah, that's actually why most Linux distros recommend a "/boot" partition that is as simple as possible (ie ext2, not a journaling fs). Once the files are written to that partition, it stores the exact location of the executable and config files into the MBR so that it can find them.
At least that's how "GRUB 1" worked... sounds like "GRUB 2" tried to be clever and it didn't work out so well...
Not open to discussion? (Score:3, Interesting)
LILO put the blocks addresses of the boot file into the boot loader. Of course, this has two major problems:
1 - Every time the boot file is updated, the boot loader needed to be updated. A simple command sufficed. But this problem absolutely PAILED in the face of the second issue...
2 - The boot file was limited in size, Only a fixed number of addresses could be coded into the boot file. But, this problem was partially "fixed" by the third issue:
3 - (I did two MAJOR problems, this is a minor issue). The boot
Re:Move along (Score:5, Insightful)
Does grub have any more reason to be there these other companies?
It does if I put it there. Nothing should be automatically written into partitioned space. Partitioning defines what areas of the disk I want to be automatically written to using whatever scheme I define by setting the partition type. Anything outside that, I'm free to manage any way I please. I can put a block-oriented FORTH program there if I like, individually managing "screen" loads and saves in the FORTH code. Or whatever. The point is, they're my blocks to do with as a like, and nothing should be written there except what I explicitly write there.
Among other things, it does mean that if I choose to write GRUB data there, it should be perfectly safe there. If it isn't, that's a serious bug in whatever program overwrote the unpartitioned block(s).
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
They've got a large market to sere that doesn't run our far-superior POSIX compatible kernels.
Windows (at least the current NT-based flavors) is POSIX compatible, you know.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
sort of the same way a hummer is JATO compatable
Re: (Score:2)
Windows really is - it's just that "POSIX compatible" isn't a very useful label.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
This isn't actually true. It used to be. Windows NT was POSIX.1 compatible (which is not very useful, and definitely doesn't imply that you can take POSIX software and run it on Windows NT without significant porting effort).
But Microsoft removed that feature from Windows XP onwards. Now the only way to get POSIX compatibility in Windows is to download and install a separate component that adds limited POSIX capabilities. Frankly anyone who cares about POSIX will just use an actual UNIX or a clone like
Re:Move along (Score:4, Funny)
Oh, wait...
It is free for all region (Score:4, Interesting)
While MBR has some function, the rest of sectors between MBR and the first partition was always a great area.
Many MBR viruses put their stuff there. Many stupid programs use it to store DRM data, so they can check whether they were copied to other computer
If GRUB is using this region too, it is equally stupid. There is no protocol for allocating this area and there is no guarantee that this data is not going to be overwritten by any other stupid program.
So nothing to see here, move aling, it is just Core Wars between stupid programs.
GRUB developers should have known better.
Re:It is free for all region (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a fairly strong convention there that userspace data goes in partitions and boot loaders low-level stuff go outside of partitions. The "unused" sectors on track 0 have long been considered as reserved for boot loader. It's even in the original specs.
Yeah, viruses use that space sometimes, but by nature a virus ignores boundaries anyway, DRM, that is, software that hides itself from the user and makes the computer malfunction (by not doing the owner's bidding) is just a special case of virus.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It is legacy that the system "owns" the entire first disk track, not just the first sector. In the case of PCs with 63 sectors per track, that means all sectors from 0 to 62 which make the first track. It would be fewer sectors for smaller tracks in different geometry.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
``The problem is nobody owns it. This is what got GRUB developers in trouble. It is just there as an artifact of aligning first partition to full cylinder. Which is not requirement either, fdisk just did it so then everyone else followed.
Since nobody owns it and it is not specified anywhere it has become free for all to mess with it. And hilarity ensued.''
Right.
Unlike many other posters of this thread, however, I think there is something to be said for using the entire space before the first partition (can
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It has been tradition for the system (bootloader, OS, etc) to "own" the first track (which can mean up to 63 sectors on PCs with legacy CHS MBRs). MBR doesn't have enough partitions to waste. With GPT, now you have 128 of them, though GPT uses 34 sectors, not just one (and a duplicate set at the end of the drive for backup). The decent way out of this is to leave the first entire track to the system.
Another example of DRM fail (Score:3, Interesting)
So once again DRM is fucking with peoples' abilities to use their computers. Except this particular bit of DRM doesn't just screw with Windows; it could potentially screw with every OS on your drive (or screw with your ability to access them, at any rate).
Yeah, it's not conventional DRM, but it's a form of DRM in that it restricts the user in some arbitrary way (and, I ought to add, breaks something else in the process... that too should be part of the definition of DRM).
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
"DRM that writes to the same spot every time without any checks sounds like something with a big "CRACK ME" target painted on it."
Good. The sooner it's cracked the sooner it may go out of fashion. :)
Not surprised (Score:3, Insightful)
I know this will very likely never happen but it would be a good step to be taken by Microsoft.
Legacy BIOS booting has always been broken (Score:2)
blindly overwriting hard disk content between the MBR and the first partition destroying information already stored there
There's no allocation scheme nor some kind of magic number to identify the content in that zone, so there is no 'smart' way to write in that zone. You could check for zeroes, which is fine fine for a new disk, then ask the user if you find that the area has been previously written, but the user usually won't know and will only be confused.
The 'smart' thing to do is not only to not write in that area (as reported, GRUB stage 1.5 can be erased), but also to not write in the MBR as too many OSes will overwrite
Malicious by definition? (Score:2)
If these apps are writing outside the file system, and doing so in an undocumented fashion, is this not; in some sense, a definition of malicious activity?
Re:Malicious by definition? (Score:4, Insightful)
Are you implying that GRUB, which is a bootloader, and whose code is available, is writing in the boot area in an undocumented fashion?
One would presume that a bootloader is supposed to write in the boot area. One is not likely to presume a userland app in a high level OS is writing in the boot area.
LILO is immune to this. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:LILO is immune to this. (Score:5, Insightful)
... which is better than adding 3 lines to /boot/menu.list or /boot/grub.conf how?
I still see to fail why GRUB2 is a big deal (right now at least).
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I really like one thing about GRUB2; you can add linux live-cds there:) I have a USB memory with ubuntu installed on it + live cds for the latest ubuntu version in the grub menu.
Re:LILO is immune to this. (Score:4, Insightful)
I failed to see what the big benefit of GRUB was in the first place. It adds a huge amount of complexity for standard Intel boxes, minimal benefits, and when it was first jammed into distros, regressed all sorts of use cases (such as booting from broken software RAIDs).
Much like the Linux audio subsystems, it's a tail of throwing out something that works for 90% of users, replacing it with something of dubious virtue, and then declaring the remaining problems too hard to solve and moving on to the Next Big Thing (GRUB 2 in this case), while giving you a pile of new and insane problems to deal with.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Just remember if you're trying to add any new OS to it that /etc/grub.d/40_custom is your friend. Add your OS to it, then update-grub, and it will be on the menu the next boot.
I couldn't find /etc/grub.d nor update-grub in grub's documentation. You sure this isn't some distribution specific bit?
From the grub doc (Node: Configuration):
GRUB is configured using `grub.cfg', usually located under `/boot/grub'.
(Node: Simple Configuration)
The program `grub-mkconfig' (*note Invoking grub-mkconfig::) generates `grub.cfg' files suitable for most cases.
(Node: Changes From Grub Legacy)
The configuration file is now written in something closer to a full scripting language: variables, conditionals, and loops are available.
So how does this make configuring grub easier?
About time...? (Score:2)
I know, I know, insanely wishful thinking. Unfortunately there is no benefit for either Apple or Microsoft to ever agree to even the concept of multi-boot since it is against their respective business models. May
Re: (Score:2)
Unfortunately there is no benefit for either Apple or Microsoft to ever agree to even the concept of multi-boot since it is against their respective business models.
Um ... ever heard of Boot Camp? Apple not only "agrees" to multi-booting, they actively support it. Blame Microsoft for hostility to the concept all you want, but there's no reason to drag Apple into it.
Re: (Score:2)
FLEXnet, Adobe's rootkit (Score:5, Informative)
The big headache is FLEXnet, Adobe's "license manager". It's a specialized rootkit that gives the remote licensing system access to the machine at a low level. Which is why it tends to break things a Windows application shouldn't be able to break. On Windows, it runs a background service and contacts a remote server frequently, sending undocumented information to the remote server and accepting update commands to change software already on the computer.
FLEXnet is the successor to FlexLM, a licensing system from the 1980s. [wikipedia.org] It started as a UNIX product. It's been owned at various times by Highland, Globetrotter, Macrovision, and Thoma Cressey Bravo. It was unreliable in the 1990s, and the passage of time does not seem to have improved things.
In general, it's best to avoid buying Adobe products which install the FLEXnet license server.
Flexlm rant (Score:5, Interesting)
A later MS Windows version I had the misfortune to use had a Y2K bug in 2008! With an update our perpetual licences were marked as expired in 2000. It took two weeks to get a fix out of Macrovision.
Turbo Tax Did It First (Score:3, Interesting)
We've been down this road before. In 2003, Intuit's Turbo Tax (for tax year 2002) pulled the same stunt [goodells.net], indiscriminately overwriting sectors at the beginning of the disk (outside any partition) and trashing people's bootloaders.
All in the futile pursuit of DRM. That's reason enough for me to use Tax Cut, instead, every year since.
Nothing new (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Solution: (Score:5, Interesting)
This is not a problem for the most important Linux systems which are not dual boot.
Most systems that are dual boot are workstations, not servers. Meaning the person who uses the system every day is most likely using Linux.
I think the solution is for the Linux installer to create Windows icons and a Start menu item group with two things.... A "boot Linux" icon (for launching loadlin)
And a "fix grub" icon, for fixing grub, no matter what some dastardly windows program has done to it.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Rather than dual boot just run windows out of a VM if you must run windows.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, because games sure do great in a VM.
Re:Solution: (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Solution: (Score:5, Insightful)
> Or how about I continue to dual-boot, and use my PC the way I want to?
You know the drill. Microsoft isn't going to cooperate with that. Now it seems so of their stooges will also "help".
Separate drives (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I did something similar. Windows is on my first hard drive (/dev/sda or C:, depending on your point of view) and Linux is on /dev/sdb or D:. I have the BIOS boot /dev/sdb, which is where Grub is. Then, when I boot to Windows, it never has any reason to mangle /dev/sdb, because it sees it as an unformatted D: drive.
So, these sorts of apps can do whatever they want to the first few sectors of /dev/sda, as long as Windows continues to boot, and Linux and GRUB are left untouched.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
What if you want games on both? This would be especially true if you do any kind of cross-platform development.
Plus, if you share a computer with others it's often not feasible to require them to startup a VM to use Windows.
The main reason my system dual boots Windows is as a backup - if I need Linux functionality or my Windows installation is screwed up, then I can use Linux instead. Windows is still the primary OS, so dual booting is still the best choice.
"built his house upon the sand" (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless you honestly believe that "Son of Vista" is more reliable and stable than Linux. In which case, I recommend you get help from a competent mental health professional.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
> Time to grow up.
Grown up people usually go for "stability" over the "shiny stuff".
The "grown up" approach is infact to leave Windows in the VM.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
This has nothing to do with Windows and is a Fallout 3 bug [sevenforums.com]. And no, a mere consumer couldn't figure it out, so he'll end up buying the same thing twice.
"Bad old days" return whenever there's some ne
Re:"built his house upon the sand" (Score:5, Insightful)
That's because Linux is 100% as vulnerable to ... Linux uses security by "obscurity"...
You really have things backwards. Linux source code is GPL freely available for anyone to inspect. Windows source is proprietary and secret, which Gates testified before Congress was necessary because it was a national resource that should be kept secret for security reasons ... until Gates gave the Chinese copies of the XP source because it was their price for Microsoft to do business in China. So, it is Microsoft that practices "security by obscurity".
Actual security? The 1,000,000 + zombies that are appearing on the giant bot farms discovered every so often are compromised Windows boxes, not Linux or Mac OS X boxes. Ballmer himself put the Linux desktop market share at around 10% [osnews.com] and called Linux a greater competitive threat than Apple. With that percentage and, according to you Linux is equally as vulnerable, then why isn't 100,000 of those zombies Linux boxes?
And, if Linux is so easy to compromise then why did professional hackers spend more than 6 months last year just to capture only 700 Linux boxes [blogspot.com] using brute force password cracking when, according to you, all they had to do was spend a day or two to lure a few hundred thousand Linux users to their porn site honey pot?
Morons are those who drink Microsoft's Kool-aide and become brainless human zombies chanting MS Technical Evangelists astroturf postings as if they are fact.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, 99.5% is a little high. Try something closer to 80%.
And yes, I'm speaking from the experience of cleaning systems where windows has Zero day vulnerabilities recently discussed here where simply going to an infected website was enough not to mention programs masquerading as legitimate installed programs because the legitimate programs draws it's window frames from IE and it's almost identical when it pops up saying "infection found, do you want to delete it". and lets not mention the recent network
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Or, better, don't.
Linux is not meant to run under Windows. If you want to run Windows, by all means run Windows and don't waste anyone else's time.
Re:Solution: (Score:4, Interesting)
Virtualization is the last refuge of a horrendously mis-engineered operating system.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Wow, it's Rip Van Winckle!
"Probably not until xorg and the linux kernel get decent 3d support for ati or nvidia. (decent meaning at least as fast the closed source drivers for a large subset of openGL and fully implements all the 3d functions of the closed source drivers.)"
The nVidia linux driver IS their closed source driver, FWIT.
And AMD have released a full 3D open source GPL compliant driver for their recent cards.
Please, go back and read some news sites from 5 years ago, they'll fill you in on what you missed while asleep.
Nouveau is the open source nvidia driver, The opensource AMD driver is much slower than the closed source fglrx ati drivers, This is slowly changing and nouveau is becoming closer to feature complete.
Progress is either happening very quickly or very slowly in this regard, depending on your perspective, from the end users point of view the stability is getting worse, as lots of slow stable code is discarded for new code that eventually will be much faster, but for the moment is the worst of all worlds. From
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Yea, article is somewhat trollish, all three apps listed are server apps, and who the fuck would dual boot a server?
Re:who the fuck would dual boot a server? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Solution: (Score:5, Insightful)
> Yea, article is somewhat trollish, all three apps listed are server apps, and who the fuck would dual boot a server?
In a "grown up" OS, the server apps don't run as Administrator.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This looks like an intentional, if misguided feature of these programs. It's not like they run as Administrator by default and mess up your stuff without any input from you.
It sounds like they just want to get rid of any code that they don't recognize as being part of the MBR. Not unreasonable if you're just running a pure Windows system, I suppose. The misguided part is assuming that anything there must be a boot-sector infector and not asking if the user is in a multiboot configuration (or better yet, checking first for legitimate alternate boot loaders.) I can't believe the developers didn't realize that something like Grub exists, but I imagine the higher-ups figured it wa
Re:Solution: (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Solution: (Score:5, Informative)
Of course, Flexnet is apparently quite capable of making Windows unbootable too [adobe.com], at least if you're using TrueCrypt. Say no to badly-designed DRM!
Re:Solution: (Score:4, Insightful)
Say no to any DRM'd shit!
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Don't run those apps as administrator. Administrator privileges are needed for raw disk access.
There are two problems with this.
The first one is that installing software generally requires elevation. And these apps could be doing their damage during install.
The second one is that if these apps need to be able to write to that section of the disk, they're going to ask for elevation. You'll either give them admin access, or you won't run them at all.
Re:Solution: (Score:5, Insightful)
OK, I can see AV software requiring raw disk access. I can't see why it would need to be able write to that section of the disk if there is no virus there.
Of the 3 programs listed, none are anti-virus. HP's software is for heavy duty keycard/usb dongle access to the computer - it might be trying to secure the bootstrap - however if that's what it's doing it should be replacing grub not just writing to the disk.
PC Angel is backup/recovery software ... WTF does it need raw disk access? It's not like your computer is accidentally going to be writing files outside the partition.
Adobe's netflex is their DRM. It's obvious why they want to write their information outside the partition - to make it harder to discover & alter - but I'll tell you that if I found a program doing that - I'd yank it off of any network I was running. You want to run on my networks, you color within the lines. I'm not wasting my time hunting down why a chunk of software is writing where it's going to be hard for my AV software to check it, I'm yanking it & tossing it in the trash.
Yeah, just a great idea to toss your proprietary code chunks into random places on the hard drive that 'nobody uses anyway'. It's a file system for a reason.
Unfortunately, the only company that's going to get any flak over this is Adobe. People are going to get work stations with the HP software installed & installing the netflex software will break it. Once that happens, Adobe will get called by "big important companies" and bitched at. HP & PC angel will merrily go on their way with only a few 'fringe crackpots' having an issue with their software.
Re:Solution: (Score:5, Informative)
If I'm not mistaken, Flex is required for Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Flash, InDesign, and After Effects. Except for After Effects, you won't find any real professional-level alternatives for any of them.
Try telling upper management that you banned your $100 an hour designers, artists, and developers from the tools they need to do their jobs, because you were worried about bootloader compatibility and proper code behaviors.
Re:Solution: (Score:5, Funny)
What about Gimp as a Photoshop replacement?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
No CMYK, no replacement for Photoshop. Unfortunately.
Never fear, he was trying to be funny.
Although I disagree with them -- another interface is a big hit to productivity.
I agree.
Remember New Ribbon. :)
Trying not to.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
A few years ago this would have been a much more fair question... now it's just troll/flamebait. I run as a limited user at both work and home, and for the most part it's installers and a couple other apps you'd expect which need admin rights.
(Even when Vista was new I kept a log of all the elevations I gave in a month or so, and with a couple exceptions (one of which has been since fixed and one of which was a stupid utility I didn't really need) they were basically on-par with what you'd need to 'sudo' to
Re:So that's what happened... (Score:4, Informative)
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That is why the first line of grub.cfg reads: "DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE. It is automatically generated ... using templates from /etc/grub.d."
So if you want to put something in grub.cfg, edit the files in /etc/grub.d to make it persistent.
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and this is not its only issue.
It has some multi hard drive issue (i think) that adds 20 seconds to my normally 6 second bootup time.
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You and your grandmother likely have different definitions of "hard".
The stereotypical computer-illiterate grandmother isn't going to be doing any kind of multi-booting in the first place, so whatever GRUB might do to her computer, and how to fix it, is irrelevant.
Re:Reinstall GRUB (Score:4, Funny)
"You and your grandmother likely have different definitions of "hard"."
As long as she's satisfied, I'll retain my definition.