Microsoft Forces OEMs To Lock Devices Into Windows 8 Using UEFI
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Fri 13th Jan 2012 16:20 UTC, submitted by moondevil
Windows And so the war on general computing continues. Were you looking forward to ARM laptops and maybe even desktops now that Windows 8 will also be released for ARM? I personally was, because I'd much rather have a thin, but fast and economical machine than a beastly Intel PC. Sadly, it turns out that all our fears regarding UEFI's Secure Boot feature were justified: Microsoft prohibits OEMs from allowing you to install anything other than Windows 8 on ARM devices (the Software Freedom Law Center has more).
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ricegf
Member since:
2007-04-25

Libre Linux products like Fedora are never really "out of support". It's not as if the commercial OS help desks actually help much, and the open alternatives have excellent on-line support. Nor are license keys ever required. Security patches are the only concern, and Linux exploits are fairly rare compared to Windows.

Long ago I installed Ubuntu on a small laptop for a friend. She showed me a website recently on that laptop, and I noticed a big red exclamation point in the top panel. Turns out the OS was more than a year out of support. She had basically shrugged and clicked past the warnings, because it just didn't seem to matter.

I updated here to 11.10 anyway.

Reply Parent Score: 2

bornagainenguin Member since:
2005-08-07

ricegf boasted....

Long ago I installed Ubuntu on a small laptop for a friend. She showed me a website recently on that laptop, and I noticed a big red exclamation point in the top panel. Turns out the OS was more than a year out of support. She had basically shrugged and clicked past the warnings, because it just didn't seem to matter.

I updated here to 11.10 anyway.


You total bastard! You installed Unity on a previously working installation of Gnome? How could you? I though this was a friend, not an enemy!? ;P

--bornagainpenguin

Reply Parent Score: 4

ricegf Member since:
2007-04-25

Yes, ain't I a stinker? :-D

In all seriousness, I'm now using Unity on my net book and primary (1920x1080) workstation. With the icons at 32pixels and the taskbar locked in place, it's actually modestly better than Win 7 (though still not quite as productive as Gnome 2 IMHO). Lenses are pretty useful once the concept sinks in, with a lot of potential yet to exploit.

Needs multi-monitor work, I understand, and some more maturing, but I think Unity will be an improvement in the long run, just as KDE 4 finally began to shine.

YMMV, etc etc.

Reply Parent Score: 3