Why Linux On Microsoft Surface Is a Tough Challenge 561
hypnosec writes "With Linux enthusiasts and distro publishers eagerly waiting for a solution to Microsoft's UEFI SecureBoot, there are those who have already looked at the viability of Linux on Microsoft Surface tablet. Matthew Garrett, a.k.a. UEFI-guru, has revealed that those who are keeping their fingers crossed and hoping to find run Linux on Microsoft's tablet are on an uphill walk and it doesn't seem to be an easy one. So why is this? The answer is in the manner in which Microsoft has restricted the Surface from loading non-signed software / binaries by implementing UEFI SecureBoot. Microsoft has loaded on the ARM based tablet its private key instead of the 'Microsoft Windows UEFI Driver Publisher' key, which is needed to sign non-Microsoft software like Linux distributions or loaders. So, no publisher key = no signed non-Microsoft binary = no Linux."
Another reason not to buy Surface (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Another reason not to buy Surface (Score:5, Insightful)
As if you needed another reason.
Exactly. Solution? Don't buy a Surface if you want to run Linux / Android on it.
It's so deliciously simple.
I don't like Win8 either.
Guess what? I haven't bought it.
Another thing I haven't bought:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cadillac_CTS_front.JPG [wikipedia.org]
It's an ugly car... I don't want one.
Re:Another reason not to buy Surface (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Another reason not to buy Surface (Score:5, Informative)
Hackers were able to get Android running even on an iPhone. I don't think the Surface will be a technical impossibility getting Android running on it... the only question will be if hackers are willing to devote the time and energy to it.
IMO it's just not worth it. Don't buy the crap from MS :)
Re:Another reason not to buy Surface (Score:4, Insightful)
Apple haven't really put a lot of effort into locking out jailbreaks. Just a token effort really to appease the devs and itunes lawyers worried about piracy. UIltimately apples money isnt really derived from software but hardware.
Microsoft on the other hand are all about software. They are much more in need of a lockout to ban competition from their hardware.
Compare the two approaches: Apple;- No competing hardware (But we dont really care if you install windows on your mac, we'll just think your daft). Microsoft;- No competing software (We dont care if you install us on a competing tablet, surface is just a marketing tool)
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We dont care if you install us on a competing tablet, surface is just a marketing tool
As long as you pay for the software.
If you bought the surface, you already paid for the software too, so no, they shouldn't care what you installed on it; their profit is already made with the sale, and doesn't rely on you keeping their software on the unit.
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But someone might see Linux on a surface and it would raise their expectations on what a Surface could do. I could see where that might cause problems.
Re:Another reason not to buy Surface (Score:5, Funny)
That dominant market share of 1%?
Microsoft is still dominant at 1% (Score:3)
That dominant market share of 1%?
Yes, unfortunately.
That 1% of tablets are the only ones that can open MS-Word documents correctly. They are a POS, but people will buy them if only for MS-Office compatibility.
The evil with an illegal monopoly is in letting it happen to begin with. Microsoft is now leveraging their old secret standard file formats to impose an inferior product on the market.
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Re:Another reason not to buy Surface (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't understand what "Abusing a monopoly" means.
When you have a monopoly, you can apply pressure to other people, knowing that there is no competition for them to run to. If they have competition to run to, you aren't abusing anything, you are just being a damn idiot. This is Microsoft's product. The Surface is manufactured by Microsoft and is in every way theirs. They are allowed to make arguably stupid decisions when it comes to their own product, as long as there is sufficient competition that other people do not need to feel impinged upon by their mistakes.
If all UEFI bootloaders only accept this private Microsoft key, and if it turns out that's Microsoft's doing, that's one thing. However, in my understanding, other OEMs will probably take the publicly signed keys that Microsoft makes available. Microsoft surface, however, will not, which some people find disappointing.
Re:Another reason not to buy Surface (Score:5, Insightful)
In what market are you proposing Microsoft has a monopoly ?
It's in the sentence you quote. Windows. They were convicted of abusing monopoly power in the OS/Browser/Office arena a while back, in case you might've missed that trial. Their "probation" expired recently, so they've been much more aggressive in launching lock-in at the vendor level.
"Dominant market share" ? In what market ? Not tablet hardware. Not tablet OSes. Not tablet software. What market ?
They are doing what most monopolies do when they want to dominate a new market. Use their existing monopoly to leverage an unfair advantage and squeeze out competitors. Surely you agree Microsoft has a monopoly in the OS market. The closest competitor (albeit a rich one) is Apple. Standard Oil did it many times over, and it's pretty common even among vertical monopolies like Standard Oil.
The reason this is an abuse is quite simple. They are requiring ARM based tablets that have Windows 8 certification (take whatever you want from the intended meaning of that phrase) to require a non-user accessible key to certify or "sign" binaries on the ARM platform. Granted, Surface is Microsoft's product, but this will (and it has been WELL documented) apply to ALL ARM processor based tablets, even from third parties. (Want to play in Windows 8 Land? You're going to have to pay the gatekeeper, Microsoft, and not give users the SecureBoot Keys.)
Implications are that they will continue to move outward from this "non-monopoly" market of tablets and phones into Intel-based "certified" Windows 8 laptops. (Desktops are probably safe, but I wouldn't bet on Redmond's desire to kill Linux and other alternative OSes there too.) All you have to do is look at the history of Microsoft to see that anything they do is geared towards not making a better product than their competitors, but defeating utterly their competitors and leaving them unable to continue. The problem that Microsoft's been facing for decades now is the fact that Linux is free. You can't under-price free, and you can't, in the current Intel architecture, make a suitable "Windows only" system anymore. (There are exceptions, and some driver support sucks, but for the most part, it's not like it was in the heyday of Microsoft's OS hot war against everyone else.)
Microsoft wants the early 90's back. They also want to do that without attracting the ire of the Federal Government. They do this where they aren't dominant and see how the public takes it. Remember TPM and encrypting hard drives (the ATA standard) back in the late 90's. It was floated about that using that could combat those evil pirates with keys granted by a licensed arm of the government (or contractor, hint Microsoft) Good ol' Senator Fritz Hollings was on the witch hunt claiming if technology companies didn't invent a way to prevent piracy at the circuit level, the federal government would step in... Thankfully that was quashed, and now Fritz is close to his karma catching up to the old cocksucker.
So forgive us for not believing Microsoft doesn't have a sinister plot in mind with this secureBoot code signing fungasm of theirs. History has proven that they are not to be trusted.... ever.
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It's not illegal to have a monopoly in your own product. Hopefully I don't have to explain why.
No, I didn't. Which is why I know what market they were actually found to be a monopoly in: x86-compatible PC OSes. Not office. Not browsers. Certainly not something as generic as "all operating systems"
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It's a bit disingenuous (to put it lightly) arguing your point the way you argued it. Microsoft has been convicted in the past of abusing its monopoly position in operating systems for general purpose desktop (and laptop/notebook/mobile) computing. A large part of that was leveraging its OS and bundling it with different products in other markets (such as web browsers) and making it difficult, if not impossible to separate them (thinking back to the IE debacle).
One more thing, when I said "a bit disingenuou
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It is stupidly trivial for Microsoft to create a standard for "Windows only" systems. It is trivial today, it was trivial ten years ago, it was trivial ten years before that. They didn't.
They tried. Microsoft has been trying to close Windows systems for nearly two decades. The last time they tried (2001's "Secure PC" -- the excuse that time was media piracy, the goal exactly the same as now: a Windows-only PC), the OEMs rejected the closed PC. Not out of any particularly good behavior themselves, mostly because they felt Microsoft was already too powerful, and allow that would make them even more so.
This time around, Microsoft's doing it in stages, and making their own hardware, so that OEM
Re:Another reason not to buy Surface (Score:4, Informative)
It doesn't have to run a single Win32 app. Whether the FSF is right or wrong I don't know. It's merely enough to demonstate that Microsoft is using its monopoly status in desktop and/or office apps to compete unfairly in another market.
In theory they could be brought up on anti-trust charges if they found a way to unfairly tie banana purchases to Windows. Exactly where does the FSF come in to this discussion, and what FUD are they spreading? Their petition is perfectly reasonable. It's asking that users have the ability to disable secure booting - not that the technology should be avoided altogether. That seems fairly pragmatic to me. Users who want the protection can have it, while those who want to install other operating systems can.
Apple angle? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why is Microsoft the only evil one for making a tablet that can't boot linux?
This is just plain silliness. There are a bunch of win8 tablets where secure boot can be disabled and linux installed.
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[Choke] You must be new here. I always come to Slashdot when I want to read irrational anti-apple guff.
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Hence Microsoft is evil and breaking
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Because Microsoft has a dominant market share by EU standards and therefore this sort of behavior is illegal
In the PC market. Not in the ARM consumer tablet market.
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The Surface Pro isn't out yet, this story isn't about it. We have no idea if it will allow secure boot to be turned off, though I believe it will because they're marketing to corporations, and their own guidelines for the Windows 8 branding say it must be user configurable on x86 hardware.
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The main reason is that, at least for the US (not sure about Europe), Microsoft's legally pronounced Monopoly position is limited to x86 personal computers. So at present, that's not extended to ARM. That's the way the judge wrote it.
Sure, it's easy to claim this is applicable to any personal computer. An Android phone or iOS tablet is just as much a personal computer as an x86 PC. There are x86 tablets that are essentially indistinguishable from ARM tablets. Motorola's got an x86 version of the RAZR Smartp
Re:Another reason not to buy Surface (Score:5, Insightful)
Why? This isn't some piece of hardware from a hardware company like Samsung or Dell or Asus or Acer or Lenovo; it's from Microsoft themselves. If you don't like the OS that's loaded on Surface, don't buy it. There's tons of tablets from companies like Samsung that you can run Linux on if you want, which don't employ such measures to keep non-MS OSes off. Purchasing this tablet is only going to put money in the hands of MS anyway, moreso than buying an Android tablet.
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Aren't other companies building the Surface for Microsoft? I mean, they don't have an ARM plant tucked away somewhere I don't know about... So, what you're buying is MS branded hardware...
If I see the practice of artificially restricting what software the purchaser of hardware can run as heinous, then why wouldn't I try to crack the DRM? There's a chance it's possible to crack the system in such a way that end users will be able to jailbreak it and run whatever software / OS they want.
0. No one will
Re:Another reason not to buy Surface (Score:5, Informative)
If I see the practice of artificially restricting what software the purchaser of hardware can run as heinous, then why wouldn't I try to crack the DRM?
Because you have to put $900 in Microsoft's pocket for the privilege of trying.
If you were somehow getting the thing for free, I could understand your reasoning. Maybe if the thing only cost $49 (and was a loss leader), I could understand your reasoning as well. But it's not free, it's not under $100, it's not even close. There's a lot of better things I could do with $900 than buy a piece of crippled hardware hoping to get Linux running on it and show MS that "DRM is just a waste of resources". Even if you do get Linux running on the thing, so that many more people could shell out $900 to do the same thing, Microsoft will just be laughing all the way to the bank.
If you really have that much spare time and money, why not work on something more productive, like fixing some of the many outstanding problems and deficiencies that Linux is still plagued by? There's lots of other hardware out there that Linux runs sub-optimally on; go buy some of that HW and fix the problems.
Solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't buy a surface?
Re:Solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Eventually all hardware will be like this. What will be your solution then? Don't buy a computer?
The trend is clear. Not so long ago, ALL hardware was yours after you bought it. Now, only a fraction is, and the ones that are not, are in the process of being locked down. In 10 years, 15 tops, you won't be able to buy an unlocked device, not a desktop, not a mobile. There will be some way to run Linux still, such as your vendor buying a key, but it's all going to be at someone else's permission.
Have fun with that world.
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Eventually all hardware will be like this. What will be your solution then? Don't buy a computer?
On the contrary, smartphones have been getting more open as time has gone on - specifically, as Android has gained traction. It used to be that pretty much any portable device was locked down and took a copious amount of time to even get a working chainload; now, many (most) of the high quality phones ship "open" and unhindered.
All hardware will be like this - locked down and inaccessible - only if we end up with an antitrust-worthy monopoly controlling the industry, like the one Apple and Microsoft both wa
Re:Solution (Score:5, Insightful)
In 20 years, there will still be general-purpose computers, but they'll be extremely expensive.
While I admire your extreme cynicism, you haven't been paying attention to hardware trends. General purpose computers will be expensive relative to the special purpose ones, which is to say they will be dirt cheap (and obscenely powerful by today's standards) .
Until they make it illegal, someone will always be willing to manufacture general-purpose-do-what-you-want machines.
Re:Solution (Score:4, Insightful)
"Don't buy a surface?"
AC, or not, mod up please. Simplest solution possible.
Re:Solution (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Solution (Score:4, Funny)
It's a Turing machine
Wow, infinite storage? I've been waiting for this!
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Why aren't there a bunch of people trying to put Linux on iPads? I don't see any Slashdot articles about that...
No need to try, it's been done. Use the Google.
I don't see Linux hackers putting tons of energy into trying to get Linux to run (natively) on all the Apple hardware out there, despite how well it sells.
Again, no need for this, since it's been done. I know heaps of people running Linux on Mac hardware (but don't take my word for it, use the Google).
So basically you're trying to stir up excitement over a non-issue. Or trolling.
Re:Solution (Score:4, Informative)
Things change (Score:5, Informative)
None of the prior-generation x86 Windows tablets ran an OS that was really touch-friendly. The software, even more so than the hardware, crippled them as products. Additionally, the hardware has come a long, long way. Tablet PCs used to come in two form factors:
1. Badly overpriced/underpowered laptops with funky screen hinges, styluses, and mediocre battery life,
2. Very thick and heavy (for a handheld device) "slates" with high prices, poor performance, no easy way to use them like a laptop, probably a stylus, and mediocre battery life.
#1 achieved some popularity in workplaces and university campuses, where the ability to take notes and documents on a reasonably portable device that could also run "real programs" was useful, but they were never a commercial hit and until software like OneNote started appearing, there wasn't a lot that took advantage of their unique functionality. For the same price, you could get a more portable and durable ultra-light laptop, or a more powerful and durable conventional laptop, or a vastly more powerful non-tablet laptop. For a lower price, you could get a more powerful and durable small laptop, or a much more powerful (though less portable) typical laptop. With tablet functionality imposing such a hit on the performance and cost, and the software not there to back it up, of course they weren't popular.
#2 was even worse off. Although slightly more durable (no easy way to cover the screen though, unlike the convertible clamshell designs) and more portable (no keyboard, etc.), they were worse off for software (some programs just can't be used without a keyboard, and the on-screen keyboards take up too many pixels and are a pain to use) and were so niche that they had very little to drive the price down (convertible tablets had a reasonable amount of competition, with most major laptop vendors offering at least one model at a time in the last decade or so). Combined with their crippling inability to be used as a typical laptop (no built-in stand, no convenient way to offer peripherals), of course they sold terribly.
The world is different now. The introduction of cheap and accurate (if not precise) capacitive touchscreens has made multi-touch a far more common tablet interface than stylus digitizers. Low-power CPUs and high-capacity batteries have more than doubled tablet battery life, even as the devices have gotten thinner and lighter yet also more powerful. Relatively cheap and widely available solid-state storage has drastically improved performance, weight, battery life, and durability of modern tablets compared to their predecessors. The earmarks of the old tablet form factors are all but gone, even as the general classes of form factor - convertible and slate - still exist. Those lines are blurring now too, though.
On the software side, multi-touch has made interacting with a tablet much easier and more practical. Largely as a result of the rise in touch-driven phones, users are much more familiar with interacting with a computing device via touch - it is, after all, a natural paradigm, and one which the old tablets typically didn't support well if at all - and developers are much more familiar with writing touch-driven software. The hard-learned lessons of what makes a touch interface usable are finally being embraced by OS and app developers alike. Similarly, the importance of low battery utilization in apps has finally penetrated, and developers are learning to code appropriately. Tablet hardware (at a reasonable price) is finally capable of supporting "real" software - full web browsers and office suites, high-quality games and powerful utility apps, slick media players (and storage for their media) and tools for photographers and artists - in form factors that were before barely usable for handwritten notes and barely capable of running anything else. To find and buy all that lovely new software, built-in app stores are now common. To the user they provide convenience and at least some safety against malware, to the developer they offer di
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You are missing the point perhaps that having burned every buyer of "Windows tablets" for 15 years so badly with poor products and huge promises, all of them have sworn off the practice forever. If they still have jobs at all. They have truly been that bad.
On battery life, the Atoms that were promised for Christmas are delayed until summer for driver issues related to sleep states. The mainstream Intel processor versions don't have the battery life you speak of, nor the sexy slimline form factors, nor t
Re:Solution (Score:4, Informative)
On battery life, the Atoms that were promised for Christmas are delayed until summer for driver issues related to sleep states.
No, they have been delayed until next month. [informationweek.com] At least as far as HP and Dell go.
The mainstream Intel processor versions don't have the battery life you speak of, nor the sexy slimline form factors, nor the low weights of competing tablets.
Actually, the W700 does [tabletpccomparison.net]. It clocks in at 7 hour with a mainstream core i3. It's available now. They may not be as slim and light as other tablets, but 2 lbs and half an inch thick isn't exactly a brick. And again, this is in comparison to the previous generation tablets which were 3-4 pounds and an inch+ thick.
On price, you can get a 7" Android tablet now for $90, or 10" for $130 - and they work fine.
You're seriously bringing $99 rite aid tablets into this discussion? These things are the lowest, most terrible pieces of computing tech out there. Terrible screens, little to no memory, tiny on board flash storage, no name brand with no name support. The *only* thing they have going for them is price. If that's all consumers cared about, you would have a point.
Ability to run legacy apps is a trap. They're deprecating legacy apps. Eventually they want to break app compat with legacy apps because the situation has become unmaintainable.
Where do you get this idea? The desktop is there for a reason, and these apps aren't going away anytime soon for corporations. If there's one thing Microsoft actually understands, it's the importance of legacy support. Windows RT is a different matter, but this is Windows 8 we're talking about.
A Windows tablet is something you sell to somebody you never want to darken your doorstep again. It's a "farewell product". As IT staff it's the last joke you play on the customers who tormented you before you retire. This is not going to go well for Microsoft.
I actually worked for a company whose business was specifically to sell the old generation tablets to businesses. It was very niche, but for the applications at the time there was nothing better. We mostly sold to medical professionals, contractors, and government. The medical people used tablets like the motion computing c5 as a sort of digital chart and had specialty software for it. The contractors and government customers used them mostly for the signature capabilities and the ability to mark up drawings on the job. Our customers like the solutions we provided, and the new crop of devices are better in every single way.
.4" thick and weigh 1.3 lbs. This is the same size as iPad, runs just as long, runs legacy software, comes with built in USB, HDMI, SD ports, removable battery, and to boot costs less. There's really nothing not to like about tablets like this.
Tablets like the Dell Latitude 10 shipping next month are
Re:Solution (Score:4, Interesting)
You're seriously bringing $99 rite aid tablets into this discussion?
Yes. I actually have many of these in the house. Two are SuperSonic SC-72MID. They are quite fine with a HTML5 browser, Google Play and even FlashPlayer preinstalled. There are many similar brands and models at this price which are quite fine as long as they have capacitive 5-point touch, acceptable display, uSDHC and Google Play, Android 4.0. $89 + tax delivered. Plus $12 for a uSDHC card. I've got one sitting next to me as I type this, and it's a huge win at the price. Not an Enterprise tablet, but well worth the money for home. Between now and summer given the progress in mobile you will be able to get tablets 2x as good for less.
There are still some lame old resistive Android 2.3 tablets in the market, and I suspect that is the basis of your experience. Give the new ones a try.
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yeah, but the MBA sucks and the Surface is awesome
Well then ... (Score:5, Insightful)
no publisher key = no signed non-Microsoft binary = no Linux = NO SALE!
Honestly, I have no real interest in the Microsoft Surface anyway. I played with one at the store for a little while, and walked away thinking, "Pretty looking, but ultimately adds no value for me." Obviously though, others feel differently.
Still, if you're someone actually interested in a Surface but NOT to run Windows on it? The fact Microsoft has it this locked down should tell you to move along and not vote for this product with your wallet. It's great to see people enabling hardware to do new things it wasn't intended to do originally.... but where do we draw the line?
Re:Well then ... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Yet millions and millions of locked cell phones are sold every year.
Re:Well then ... (Score:4, Insightful)
And rooted/unlocked pretty soon.
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Re:Well then ... (Score:4, Insightful)
That's not a defense. It doesn't make it acceptable, it just means that the vast majority of people are completely unaware of what they're pulling.
Which explains much of the governments and corporations in the world today, they act and exploit the ignorance of people on a daily basis.
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The line is where it's always been: you buy the product, it's yours, you can do whatever you like with it. It's unreasonable for a manufacturer to try to take those rights away from you.
If the product was sold to you in this state without trying to hide it then they haven't "taken" anything away from you.
Re:Well then ... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Reasonable expectations.
If you buy a car, you have a reasonable expectation of what it can do, like drive on all the roads. It's such a reasonable expectation that you don't need to ask the salesman _specifically_ "can this car drive on all the roads?".
Similarly, if you buy a computer you have some reasonable expectations about what it can do. You don't need to ask "ca
Re:Well then ... (Score:4, Insightful)
The line is where it's always been: you buy the product, it's yours, you can do whatever you like with it. It's unreasonable for a manufacturer to try to take those rights away from you.
No the manufacturer sold it to you "as is" and "fit for purpose" if you want to do something else with it either buy a product that does what you want or go make it yourself. I personally don't like "restricted-boot" so I don't buy a product that has it - exception if the product is well designed and needs no modification
..or Android (Score:2)
It won't significantly impact their sales
Judging by there current sales you would think they need every sale to count. Perhaps a third party OEM will do hardware right.
Good! (Score:2)
The Suface If Not Seling Well (Score:2)
I hope the surface tanks. Linux users are probably more likely to want keyboards than windows users.
....but that is not the point. Linux users that do *keyboard intensive tasks* want keyboards...whether they want undersized candy coloured keyboards is dubious, or them attached to an undersized tablet is a another matter, but implying that the average user uses the keyboard more that any other OS is simply a little strange X pre-dates Windows :). Those that do you can see on here flaming each other about which one is best...although I believe in that knife fight the IBM Model M wins.
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Not too shabby but not good either. I used a MS keyboard for some time but then ran into a Dell clicky which got me on the Model M/Unicomp bandwagon pretty soon.
Re:Good! (Score:5, Informative)
MS made (and still makes) some of the first and best mass-market ergonomic keyboards. It was apparently actually a response to an internal problem; too many of their employees were getting RSIs and the best solution was to manufacture their own improved keyboard design. MS also makes some of the best general-purpose mice (1000 DPI, 5 buttons, excellent optical sensor, cheap) and laptop mice. They have competition in all those areas, and some of their more exotic designs haven't fared too well, but the mainstream Intellimouse designs have gone through something like eight generations of steady sales. I don't know how well they've done on the webcam market, though.
Also, since we're talking hardware, the Xbox and Xbox 360, while very expensive to make and taking a long time to recoup that investment, are certainly products which "did not tank". The Kinect has sold fantastically, although the gen1 model is feeling a little gen1 these days.
As for Surface... that remains to be seen. The lockdown on the UEFI and bootloader is a pain (personally) and will cost them a few sales (some portion of Slashdotters who would otherwise buy a widescreen tablet with a really nice cover/keyboard/trackpad accessory). Beyond that... it remains to be seen. The Surface Pro is even more a mystery in terms of market response.
But when Microsoft do it... (Score:3, Insightful)
Which tablets? (Score:2, Informative)
I can think of only a few major brand Android tablets that have locked bootloaders, and all of these have been defeated:
* Nook Tablet
* Nook HD
* Nook HD+
* Kindle HD 7"
* Kindle HD 8.9"
All use u-boot [www.denx.de] an open-sourced bootloader, and all had implementation flaws. (Actually, the flaws WERE their implementation in the first place. Let's say both had "available fixes".)
Other tablets such as the Nexus 7 and 10 have locked bootloaders too, but they are unlockable via fastboot and the command "fastboot oem unlock".
Re:Which tablets? (Score:5, Interesting)
So basically you are assuming that the Microsoft locked-down bootloader is impervious to hacking while all the Android ones suck and can be circumvented easily. Without knowing it, you've just complimented Microsoft's software engineering ability.
If the Surface doesn't just bomb out in the market, there will very probably be some hacks that make it possible to load on a new OS. Frankly, my Android phone is much harder to install a new OS on that any other piece of hardware that I've ever owned even though it theoretically isn't "locked down" so I'm not going to point fingers at Microsoft for copy-catting everybody else in this space.
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I hope that it becomes reasonably simple to add a signed GPL system to computers using the Secure Boot system. For now I haven't seen much to give me confidence, so I'm looking for workarounds. What puzzles me is that I haven't seen anybody discussing booting Grub using the Windows boot configuration data store (BCDEdit.) That's what I do now. My computer boots to the Windows boot loader which I modified from Windows to load the IPL for Grub. Grub then takes over and boots Linux. It isn't even hard to set u
Primary reason (Score:5, Insightful)
SecureBoot was never about security If it was, Microsoft would put at least some token effort towards blacklisting drivers with ring 0 holes. The point since day one was to hinder the spread of non-commercial alternatives.
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The point since day one was to hinder the spread of non-commercial alternatives.
More accurately, to hinder non-Microsoft alternatives on their hardware... it's not like Microsoft would tell Apple "sure, we'll let you put iOS on the Surface" even if Apple had any interest in doing that. It just so happens that the only software that people try to put on Microsoft-branded hardware are non-commercial projects.
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Agreed. Given how long it's taking to get the UEFI code from Microsoft, it's not surprising. Shame that hardware vendors are bending over backwards to Microsoft's wishes, not that they have much of a choice.
Unbelievable. (Score:5, Insightful)
Stop. Just stop.
It's a Microsoft device. It was designed to run Win RT. This is quite clearly marked on the box and the device itself.
There are a thousand other things wrong with Linux right now and nobody seems interested in fixing them (yes, I'm doing my part, but I only have so much free time to spend fixing random issues and maintaining my own packages). No, instead, we're going to dump all our time and effort into making a device that was NEVER DESIGNED TO RUN LINUX, well, run Linux.
Sooner or later you just have to say enough is enough. This is almost as stupid as buying an iPad or iPhone and attempting to run Android on it. Just because you're buying "hardware" doesn't mean you're getting the privilege of installing whatever the hell you want on the device. Mobile equipment like this is marketed and sold as an end-to-end solution, you're not buying hardware- you're buying software tied to hardware. Making the mistake of thinking that the hardware is there for you to do whatever you wish with is silly. If you want a tablet to run Linux on, buy a tablet that runs Linux.
Trying to shoehorn the 'tux onto the ARM Surface is stupid. No shit Microsoft has locked the thing up, they're subsidizing the damned hardware by assuming that you'll run Windows on it and buy applications through the Windows App Store.
This is almost as dumb as buying a set of kitchen utensils then wondering why you can't build a shed with them. If you wanted to buy a shed, why didn't you invest in a set of proper tools? What on earth made you think a few forks, spoons, and knives were going to let you do the same thing?
Re: (Score:2)
The two most rational posts in this thread so far are from ACs and no mod points for either.
What gives?
Re: (Score:3)
Rational posts from ACs are really rare. Two in one discussion is even rarer.
Re:Unbelievable. (Score:5, Insightful)
Where is the rationality in buying a product that doesn't suit your needs?
It isn't that it was never designed to run linux (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
> The problem is that it was designed to never run linux.
Short of some bogus barrier, there is no such thing.
If it can run some proprietary OS then by definition it can run Linux. Linux runs everwhere including hardware that other desktop operating systems can't touch.
If it's a general purpose machine Linux can run it. If it's a Turing machine then Linux can run it.
The idea that it's "not designed for" is just clueless nonsense.
Re: (Score:3)
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." - Ghandi
And before all that, you lose the ability to spell.
Re: (Score:3)
My views of ownership may differ from yours (Score:5, Interesting)
Just because you're buying "hardware" doesn't mean you're getting the privilege of installing whatever the hell you want on the device.
See ignoring the massive flag waving response. I have this belief that if I buy something I can do what the hell I want with it. When did I start hiring/licensing my computer!! Can Microsoft really not effective compete with Linux the OS you claim in not ready (It is has been for years) I believe the Android variant is set to eclipse Windows Next Year.
Re: (Score:3)
Even if you go to the pet shop and buy a gold fish and it's yours it still won't fly. I'm telling you, it won't be possible.
What a stupid argument. A goldfish has no wings, so it can't fly. A Surface is a flying goldfish whose wings have been tied down to prevent it flying.
Specious logic (Score:5, Interesting)
There are a thousand other things wrong with Linux right now and nobody seems interested in fixing them (yes, I'm doing my part, but I only have so much free time to spend fixing random issues and maintaining my own packages). No, instead, we're going to dump all our time and effort into making a device that was NEVER DESIGNED TO RUN LINUX, well, run Linux.
Until relatively recently, no device was *ever* designed to run linux. If the Linux community accepted that approach, Linux wouldn't run on anything.
I think it's important, and sends a message to big companies, that Linux run on everything. It tells them, you will not avoid us. You cannot lock your shit down. No matter what you do, we'll be there.
If I was more clever, I'd do a rendition of a Police song to accentuate the point.
Tied sale, supposedly illegal in the U.S. (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Trying to shoehorn the 'tux onto the ARM Surface is stupid. No shit Microsoft has locked the thing up, they're subsidizing the damned hardware by assuming that you'll run Windows on it and buy applications through the Windows App Store.
Are you sure they are subsidizing it? Apple supposedly makes obscene profits from the similarly priced (with similar, if not better, specs) iPads.
They are certainly throwing a lot of marketing dollars behind it - but that's more to promote Win 8, not the hardware.
Re:Unbelievable. (Score:5, Insightful)
what!!! What has happened to this world?! I bought it. If I want to install DOS 6.2 on it, that is nobody's business but mine. I cant believe the corporations have managed to convince people like you otherwise.
Re: (Score:3)
Incorrect.
When I buy a Chevy Volt, I am not forced to fill up with only one vendor's gas. I am not forced to charge up with electricity from a particular utility.
When I buy a Sony TV, I am not forced to watch content only from Sony/Columbia/VEVO.
When I buy a Sansa MP3 player, I am not forced to buy and load only music from Sansa's "content partners." Hell, on many of
Re: (Score:3)
It's actually more like buying a Stanley hammer and wondering why you can't use it to drive Ace brand nails...OH WAIT! You absolutely can! The very idea of rigging a hammer to only work with one brand of nail is laughably stupid.
Consider, you claim that doing whatever legal thing I want with my own possessions would be a "privilege"?!? Under what legal or moral theory is it anything but a natural right?
It's also worth considering that the PC Linus first installed Linux on wasn't intended to run Linux either
Expected (Score:3, Insightful)
Had Microsoft tried to sell a PC that was similarly locked-down in the late 1990s, I expect they would've gotten sued by the government. However, mobile phones (and game consoles) have traditionally been locked-down, and no regulatory agency seems to mind.
Now the line is blurring between the two, with the tablet borrowing from both laptops and mobile phones. I assume soon either it'll be OK for any device to be locked down, or all devices will have to be "openable".
I wonder how that's gonna turn out...
Re: (Score:2)
I assume soon either it'll be OK for any device to be locked down, or all devices will have to be "openable".
I wonder how that's gonna turn out...
Depends on how many MS/Apple/Sony etc executives and politicians that we test for flammability and high-velocity impact resistance.
Strat
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Most are.
There may be a DMCA exemption for jailbreaking, but it only applies to cell phones and Apple can still fight you. Thus the lack of a jailbreak for iOS 6.
I think you mean "Apple and Microsoft are turning the computer into a game-console type appliance."
Why would you want to? (Score:5, Interesting)
If you want a *nix that runs on MS Surface caliber hardware and aren't worrying about licensing, get an iPad. You can fill it up with important apps for under $100.
If you want a cheap *nix pad, get an android. It still has licensing issues, but is the commodity hardware that was the MS Windows machine.
The reality is that OSS is going to be a few years behind MS, which is a couple years behind Apple. Look at the office app. Openoffice.org was possible only because the office application is now legacy and MS did little to keep the product unique. While the GUI was available in high end Unix machines since it was available for Apple, commodity machines did not have graphic coprocessors that made GUIs efficient until the early 90's.
So it is an advancement that we had a functional *nix tablet, in the form of android, before we had a functional MS tablet, in terms of surface. So I am not sure why we would want to make MS Surface anything other than a marginal device by standardizing it as a *nix device. I mean, one thing about windows is it was the standard for writing memos and the like, so if you could get the MS Windows applications running in *nix, then you would not have to have a MS license. But what Apps does MS Surface have? I mean MS is so desperate that they are buying banner ads on /. begging developers to write apps.
Just let the MS Surface die a graceful death. Don't glorify it by even suggesting it should run and *nix.
What does UEFI really accomplish? (Score:2)
Does it make your machine any more secure?
Very dubious, because I think I can prove historically security is not a hardware issue, it is a human issue. I am not pulling this out of my arse either, I can site a huge list of failed hardware security solutions, which DO NOT WORK.
So what has it accomplished so far?
That is easy, unless you get essentially permission from Microsoft, you can't use GNU software.
I won't buy a UEFI motherboard. Period.
If motherboard manufacturers are STUPID ENOUGH to install UEFI ind
Re:What does UEFI really accomplish? (Score:5, Informative)
Whether Secure Boot makes your system more secure is still up in the air.
What does UEFI do? It lets us move past many of the ancient holdovers from 30 years ago that imposed silly limits on PCs, like 2TB limits on the boot drive, the MBR and associated partitioning scheme (GPT is much cleaner.) It also removes all the 16-bit, 1MB memory window limitations at boot time, moving the processors directly into 64-bit on startup and never leaving. All the archaic stuff moved into a compatibility module that can be turned on and off as you see fit.
Best of luck to you, I hope you enjoy MIPS. Every x86 board vendor has moved to UEFI.
Re:What does UEFI really accomplish? (Score:4, Insightful)
Hardware that can run any OS will still be available, if just to fill the server market. There are tons of companies out there running on linux servers, and they have no interest in switching to either windows or being forced into very big hardware. As long as they exist and keep buying, you'll be able to run linux on the desktop, no matter what Microsoft wants.
Jailbreak surely? (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
I'm assuming that the same folks that root iPhones and Android phones, and seemingly every other bit of hardware on the planet will defeat this pretty fast as well.
Surely they can do it faster than the others, since its Microsoft and they dont know how to do security, right?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Unfortunately Microsoft has learned a lot over the decades. The Xbox 360 is very secure (per CPU keys in ROM internal to the CPU, RAM encryption, a small, lean, and easy-to-secure hypervisor) and has yet to have a modding solution available that doesn't require tweaking the hardware. This is in contrast to the original Xbox which was a massive failure from a security standpoint.
Why bother? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why would you even bother to put Linux on Microsoft hardware? You have chosen hardware that's crippled by design, you have chosen to get yourself shafted. There are plenty other Linux friendly hardware out there...
So stop trying (Score:3)
Microsoft has made clear they don't want Linux on Surface. Nothing is that unique about the Surface hardware. So stop trying and concentrate on Linux on any number of more popular and more open tablets.
Ha! (Score:4, Insightful)
Next time, "things will be alright"-folk, dont tell us we didn't tole you!
Surface users are up in arms! (Score:4, Funny)
All 5 of them.
Why Bother? (Score:3)
also, the android patches have been included into 3.3 and 3.4 and later kernels, so a stock linux kernel can work.
also, linux 3.8 will run on multiple arm cpus with one binary kernel.
There are far far far more android tablets. Why even bother with a windows tab?
As if... (Score:3)
It's almost as if they purposefully want to create products that will fail. Can anyone say "Zune", "Vista", or "Windows 8"? Do they somehow make more money doing things this way (perhaps a tax writeoff) than actually making something that sells tens or even hundreds of millions of units???
Locked bootloaders are so last decade.
I think the title is wrong (Score:3)
Microsoft Surface is not the name of a particular tablet, but a line of tablets which includes Windows RT & Windows 8 Pro
Windows 8 Pro Surface does not require signed binaries, it is simply Windows Pro.
They're talking specifically about Windows RT, and its not any better or worse than an iPad.
...Not so much (Score:2)
Guess Microsoft is kind of following along the steps of Apple on this one..
...No Microsoft is forging the way ahead on Monopolistic abuse. You can still install Linux on Apple computers (just not upgrade any components). The fact that they are adopting in part Apples business model at the expense of its OEM partners is just hilarious, as Apples profit margins are set to slump :).
When Did Apple Lock their computers (Score:5, Interesting)
just another lesson learned from Apple.
I'm tired of Apple being used to justify shitty behaviour from Microsoft. In this case its no even true.
Re: (Score:3)
I have OSX on my Dell Mini. Seems to work fine.
Where is my open Xbox 360 (Score:2)
I reckon it will take some bright spark 6 months to figure out a way round this.
A work around in not a real solution, and is criminal, The reality is the world we live in has changed, DMCA abuse is real. EFF managed to get a reprieve on the iPhones(like you need another reason not to buy Apples stuff)...but failed to get one for the iPad. Pretending its a *real solution is just a lie*, Linux is not a hacker project, ask Red Hat.