Microsoft Bans Linux/Android Dual-Booting on Windows 8 ARM Devices

http://www.dailytech.com/Microsoft+Bans+LinuxAndroid+DualBooting+on+Windows+8+ARM+Devices/article23785.htm

by mtgx • 14 years ago

146 133 14 years ago

danmaz74• 14 years ago

The article is much more complex than what it would look like from the title, but it is a good idea to keep the pressure on on Microsoft so that they might "soften their position", as is stated in the article.

keeperofdakeys6• 14 years ago

Originally Windows 8 x86 certification didn't mandate that a disable option must exist. They changed this because of pressure. They won't soften their position just like that, they have a policy and agenda and they will follow it. Just the fact that they will have a SecureBoot stronghold means they can easily tighten their position. The pain doesn't come from the fences being built, it's from taking them away.

Also, all of this pretty much stops new linux penetration, which is a horrible thing.

tjoff9• 14 years ago

The windows 8 x86 certification shouldn't need to mandate that a disable option must exist. It was added because people wouldn't trust manufacturers to support anything but Windows.

polshaw• 14 years ago

Along with their apparent restriction of the 'desktop' on arm, this is the reason I lost interest in windows8 on arm. So far a linux + android solution (like ubuntu have demonstrated) seems more powerful and very will also have more apps to start (way to go throw away windows' advantage #1).

It seems quite short-sighted, too, as I see ARM as being a viable laptop platform in the life of windows 8, but MS are restricting it to 'device' status.

Also, we've known this for a long time now.

rbanffy4• 14 years ago

Windows already had no advantage - all programs would need to be rebuilt for the new platform. That's what killed Windows NT on everything non-x86.

The only apps that will be cross-platform will be WinRT/Metro based ones.

brudgers10• 14 years ago

Metro is a set of UI guidelines, not a set of programming tools. Applications built using the Silverlight Framework (not to be confused with the browser plugin) should be suitable for cross platform development because CLR runs on both platforms. CLR remains Microsoft's way of integrating the "write once, run anywhere" philosophy within the Windows ecosystem in order to deal with legacy issues.

cube13• 14 years ago

>The only apps that will be cross-platform will be WinRT/Metro based ones.

Is this true? The code is cross-platform, but I was under the impression that the executable was not. You still need to compile the app for both X86 and ARM.

givan• 14 years ago

Unlike on x86 where windows dominates on ARM there is a different story and linux dominates on ARM, they can lose some market share because of this policy but it seems that microsoft only cares to keep their old strategies no matter what times they live in.

wavephorm• 14 years ago

It only increases the subsection of hardware I won't buy. Thanks for making my choice easy.

tjoff9• 14 years ago

What subsection of hardware do you buy?

exDM692• 14 years ago

I assume Microsoft will want to have secure booting devices that ship with Windows, because Hollywood and other content producers require a secure OS so their DRM is safer. If they would allow non-secure boot, it might be difficult or impossible to get video and music content licensed from the major producers on the platform.

fpgeek3• 14 years ago

Because insecure-booting OSes like Windows 7 (and earlier) and Mac OS X have so much trouble getting licensed video and music content...

exDM692• 14 years ago

The situation is a bit different on mobile platforms. Mostly because the field is new and changing, so content producers see an opportunity to require secure boot.

DRM/content licensing was cited by Asus as a reason to ship their Android products with locked bootloaders. I assume the same applies to Microsoft.

keeperofdakeys6• 14 years ago

It should be noted Secure Boot is not a DRM device in itself, it merely allows you to enforce a chain of trust for an OS to boot. The OS still needs to provide DRM functions itself.

slowpoke2• 14 years ago

Secure Boot (on ARM) restricts my ability to run whatever the fuck I want on my device. I do not see how this is not Digital Restrictions Mismanagement.

mtgx2• 14 years ago

The real problem with that is that if Metro is successful on Windows 8, that also means that people will have to use only the Windows 8 store in the future, which also means that you won't be able to install apps from websites anymore, just from Microsoft's store. Then, they can just delete whatever apps they don't like or the apps RIAA and MPAA doesn't like.

darkarmani3• 14 years ago

Or what? Hollywood will boycott the entire world?

gouranga4• 14 years ago

Like iOS. Why the shock headline?

wkz• 14 years ago

I would love to see an open bootloader for iDevices. However, I do think that there is a difference between Apple, a company who makes their own hardware and have chosen this strategy, and Microsoft, a company who tries to impose their strategy on others (device makers).

keeperofdakeys6• 14 years ago

In theory, the PC makers are the ones who can choose whether to apply Windows Certification to their devices. Of course, they are in a position where they have no real choice not to, and then we are getting into antitrust territory.

ars• 14 years ago

Because the iOS policy is unethical (the machine belongs to the user, not apple), and now Microsoft is (attempting) to do it too.

The only way to stop unethical behavior is to punish them. The Library of Congress already ruled that this behavior is unethical, now manufacturers need to be pressured.

gouranga4• 14 years ago

For reference as the parent of your comment, I agree 100%

I do however see disparity with general opinion and what is right, which is slightly worrying, hence the original point.

nathan_long4• 14 years ago

Because it's unpleasant to see an unfortunate anomaly becoming a trend.

ivanbernat• 14 years ago

I've said this before and I'll say it again: Microsoft isn't doing this to ban Ubuntu / Linux in general, but to prevent Android from spreading. With ICS being a great OS, many (tech) folks would simply dual-boot ICS on their WinRT devices.

beedogs• 14 years ago

But those people will just figure out a way to do that anyway.

I don't see the point in these decisions to expend likely a lot of time, effort, and money eliminating edge cases.

chucknelson• 14 years ago

You never know, if Microsoft allowed it that could open the door to marketing and such that could lead to Win8+Android tablets being mainstream or something.

Not that it would be likely, but I'm sure Microsoft would want to stave off any chance of that happening in the early days of the platform.

silon3• 14 years ago

Virtualization is better than dual boot anyway. MS better make it run well virtualized.

gouranga4• 14 years ago

For reference, it absolutely fucking sucks under virtualization.

commandar• 14 years ago

On hardware that's powerful enough to handle virtualization well, sure.

It looks like ARM has gotten some virtualization extensions recently, but I still have my doubts as to how pleasant the experience would be on sub 1.5GHz processors.

tjoff9• 14 years ago

We've yet to see any mobile device where running another OS than the bundled one have been anything but a nightmare. This is done everywhere, android manufacturers constantly try to lock users in their own android shell, not to mention apple.

These devices are not multipurpose devices, they are built for a specific purpose and tailormade for that and nothing else. It is not in any sense equivalent to desktop/laptop-computers. Which is kind of apparent considering the limitations that Windows Phone, Android and iOS amount to.

Since Microsoft have expressed that secure boot must be optional on x86 it is quite easy to justify this rationally without resorting to the popular "typical evil Microsoft tactics" argument.

liquidsnake• 14 years ago

Exception: HP Touchpad. ICS runs great on it.

fpgeek3• 14 years ago

I've read that the Nokia N9 also does a good job of running ICS.

Other counter examples: Boot2Gecko (runs well & generally demoed on a Samsung Galaxy S2), Ubuntu for Android, ASUS Transformers running various Linux distributions, ...

recoiledsnake5• 14 years ago

That is because WebOS was running a Linux kernel and the hardware was similar to a HTC phone(Sensation?).

tmzt2• 14 years ago

Because the touchpad had a fairly open bootloader and we built a more versatile one for it based on the same code base (moboot). The bootloader in the OMAP chip also allows booting from usb and does not require the second stage be signed.

PerryCox• 14 years ago

>This is done everywhere, android manufacturers constantly try to lock users in their own android shell, not to mention apple.

And people still jailbreak/root their devices for numerous reasons. If you buy something, you should be able to do what you want with it. Just because it's designed for one thing doesn't mean it can't do others.

nathan_long4• 14 years ago

I strongly disagree.

>> "These devices are not multipurpose devices".

These devices have chips which can run any algorithm you write. They are not hammers, or even calculators. They are computers. They also have GPS, motion sensors, cameras, and microphones. They are multipurpose enough to make phone calls, play games, run maps, and even power satellites: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/spheres_smart...

>> Since Microsoft have expressed that secure boot must be optional on x86 it is quite easy to justify this rationally...

Why does doing the right thing in once place give them license to do the wrong thing in another?

I appreciate the security value of secure boot, but ONLY as far as its purpose is to serve the customer. Which means the customer must be able to disable it.

tjoff9• 14 years ago

No, they are not computers any more than my clock is a computer. Yes, deep within there is a multipurpose chip that performs the calculations but that is abstracted away. Just as your car isn't a computer, it has multiple computers that aid it but it is not a computer and you have no real interface with the computer itself. Just as my clock, just as my phone, just as my fridge.

I appreciate the security value of secure boot, but ONLY as far as its purpose is to serve the customer. Which means the customer must be able to disable it.

If you can disable it it doesn't serve the customer, because the customer is incompetent and would gladly disable it in exchange for a picture of a cat.

You don't buy a computer, you buy an android/windows/iOS device. Just as you don't buy a computer when you buy an Xbox360 or an PS3 - and because you haven't bought a computer you shouldn't really have any problems with the manufacturer locking you in. Oh, but you wanted a computer? Then buy a computer! Sigh.

I never said I agreed with Microsoft, but it is a rational decision (a rational decision that Apple and pretty much all Android and WP manufacturers have made) that fits well withing the concept of all popular mobile OS's, if you don't buy into that then I guess your only bet is maemo/meego, because you surely don't run WP/android/iOS, right?

bni• 14 years ago

From the article: "Apple has long prevented dual booting to Linux"

This is not true, I have Ubuntu on my MacBook Pro.

pimeys• 14 years ago

Me too. You just need the refit to enable multiboot, that's it. I wonder how's it going to be in the future.

brudgers10• 14 years ago

The article is about ARM devices, not x86.

rbanffy4• 14 years ago

Apple makes their own devices. Microsoft is forcing OEMs who would allow dual booting to restrict user choice because they'd rather not compete.

tehwalrus• 14 years ago

It's not true in the same way about apple's ARM devices either. Microsoft's actions control the hardware's boot code, which (I am assuming) cannot be flashed easily as it's not generic between devices. Apple's control over iPhones is bypass-able via jailbreaking (I've seen iPhones that dual boot android, which wouldn't be possible with a similar restriction.)

Apple make this stuff hard and fiddly (and, on iOS devices, mildly dangerous). Microsoft are making it impossible, if I've understood correctly.

tzs• 14 years ago

My speculation is that they are doing this so that they can offer subsidies on the hardware.

fpgeek3• 14 years ago

If that's the problem, why can't end users "buy off" the bootloader lock if they want to?

miahi• 14 years ago

MS doesn't need the money, they needs the users.

wmf• 14 years ago

Then they'd have to admit that the subsidy exists.

brudgers10• 14 years ago

My speculation is so that ARM devices which take advantage of the Microsoft stack are suitable for a wider range of enterprise customers. Think HIPAA rather than "hip."

Nelson69• 14 years ago

Seems possible that there could be 2 options, a Windows option and an unlocked option. You'd think the Windows option would be more expensive. How many vendors are really set up for that?

Windows really took off because of this practice. Vendors would license it based upon total PCs sold, regardless of if they even had windows installed or the customers wanted it. It was so effective that the competition dried up and died in a remarkably short time. This was competition from IBM, you could lump some others in with it BeOS and maybe some early Linux but Big Blue had their ass handed to them which was remarkable. At the time there are a lot more (maybe, maybe not, it seemed like there were a lot more) tier 2 type vendors: name companies with support and such.

I'd argue MS doesn't know how to build market share other than with subsidies or lock-ins and that's what this is. If devs don't pick up Win8 pretty quickly, that ARM tablet isn't going to look so great, why wouldn't you want to try Android with its piles of apps? Then it puts the vendors in a very interesting bind, you have to pick which platform to support, a market leader (Android) or a product from a market leader in a different market. I don't remember the results of the anti-trust but I could see how this is designed to do the same thing but is different enough.

A handful of motherboards now come with 2 BIOS, I think I have an Asus mb with one that you can "tweak" and overclock and then like a failsafe backup. Something like that, maybe with a hardware jumper setting seems like the real solution for your vendors, but that adds some cost. Either that or Win8 just flops, industry wide, that seems like it might be the better solution. There will be win8 tablets at Walmart and Target and such though and million of less technical folks will buy them. I suspect dual boot is dead forever unless someone certifies some sort of kexec like application.

darkarmani3• 14 years ago

Isn't that dangerously close to anti-competitive behavior? (i mean noticeably enough to get attention)

zokier• 14 years ago

Does anyone have statistics about how many Android devices require signed systems?

brudgers10• 14 years ago

[edit] The article is from January[/edit]

Topic discussed previously on Hacker News:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3458679

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3567448

Upshot: If you don't care that your hardware is certified, you don't have to implement secure boot in the way Microsoft requires for certification. You will probably have a few technical challenges, however.

air2• 14 years ago

"Upshot: If you don't care that your hardware is certified, you don't have to implement secure boot in the way Microsoft requires for certification."

No, upshot is that for ARM you can't get Windows at all (certified or not) if you allow other operating systems to boot.

brudgers10• 14 years ago

Windows certification is not necessarily the same as Windows licensing, and given the history, that is likely to remain the case.

The article conflates the two: "a document that regulates licensing (certification) (pg. 116): "

But Microsoft is clear: "The new Windows Hardware Certification Program (formerly known as the Windows Logo program) makes it easier to certify your hardware for Windows 8. Use the requirements to build and certify your Windows-compatible devices, systems, and filter drivers across all Windows platforms."

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/hh7...

mtgx2• 14 years ago

I think the real issue with this is that it stops manufacturers from bundling Windows RT with Android. Take Asus for example. They've just made their "big" announcement which everyone thought it would be a dual-booting Windows RT/Android machine, and it turns out it's just Windows with the Bluestacks program that can make it run Android apps inside Windows.

I find that pretty silly, and I don't see a real reason why they didn't just make the machine dual-boot both Windows and Android. If users want Android apps inside Windows, they can download Bluestacks themselves. So the only explanation is that Microsoft is coercing manufacturers into not allowing Android or other OS's alongside Windows.

If they are doing this now, and more Linux vendors start asking for Microsoft's "permission" to boot their OS on the Windows machines with UEFI, what's to stop Microsoft from denying a UEFI license to someone who's starting to become a "real" competitor to Windows (like Android is, in some cases)? What if Ubuntu gets to 10% market share in the next 5 years, and keeps growing? Will they keep giving Canonical the UEFI license? What's guaranteeing that they will, if they are already banning Android from the Windows RT machines?

recoiledsnake5• 14 years ago

>I think the real issue with this is that it stops manufacturers from bundling Windows RT with Android. Take Asus for example. They've just made their "big" announcement which everyone thought it would be a dual-booting Windows RT/Android machine, and it turns out it's just Windows with the Bluestacks program that can make it run Android apps inside Windows.

Everyone thought something that everyone else knew wouldn't happen from about 6 months? That article you submitted is from January.

Also, do you have any references to everyone thinking Asus's big announcement will be an Windows RT/Android hybrid?

yajoe• 14 years ago

You're absolutely right. This announcement is all about money more than OS religion.

The expectation and Microsoft's fear was that manufacturers would take the marketing money (i.e. the Win8 subsidy) that Microsoft is paying out the wazoo and hedge OS bets by also including Android. Acer and Asus don't care what OS they run so long as it keeps them in the race against Apple. They're happy to let Microsoft pay them money to market their devices if it means they have to include "apps" (and in this case app := OS).

Microsoft wasn't willing to subsidize devices that run Android because it views Android as a competitor rather than an enemy-of-my-enemy. Given Apple's clear cost advantage, it would have been interesting to see such a Android+Win8+subsidy bet play out. Microsoft might have been able to dislodge marketshare enough during the year that Microsoft comes out ahead next year with SP1. Alas, the business case will slightly less interesting.

c0un7d0wn2• 14 years ago

Just when we hear chromeos and android about to become one

madoublet2• 14 years ago

I did not hear that. Link?

c0un7d0wn2• 14 years ago

http://www.techradar.com/news/software/operating-systems/goo...

novalis• 14 years ago

The really troubling part of this is UEFI being used as a strong arm scam that depends on MS good will... how did things get to this point. On another point, they can "ban" whatever they want. They also didn't support Windows Phone 7 or allow Android and Ubuntu on my old trusty HTC HD2 and look at it go. Plus, it is just like saying to a child that she cannot have the piece of cake in front of her, if it looks tasty it's going to be munched. Meaning, if the hardware will be good someone somewhere is going to shoe horn it independent of what MS wants.

protomyth2• 14 years ago

I really don't care about the restrictions on tablets. I figure every OS will have a tablet or two available.

What really bothers me is that ARM-based laptops come under this crud. I have really wanted a modern day replacement for the Psion. Something that gets great battery life and has a decent keyboard. I also want to run a BSD (probably Open), so that is really going to make it a pain.

cryptoz• 14 years ago

What's the difference between tablets and laptops? I don't see any differences when it comes to the ability to dual boot. The ASUS Transformer line has been around for a while now, showing that the line between tablet and laptop is blurring. Also, Canonical/Ubuntu seems to be gunning for tablet market share in the future. Do you think they'll have their own hardware?

I don't see any reason to separate out tablets and laptops when talking about dual booting, OS concerns, etc. A tablet is just a laptop with a touch screen and optional rather than mandatory keyboard.

protomyth2• 14 years ago

Because I see tablets as a device that really needs software that's been design for it. It a package that I buy to have it work out of the box. Tablets aren't laptops without a keyboard, they are their own thing.

Laptops have a long tradition of multiple OSes giving a pretty good experience and being open to multiple OSes.

mhurron• 14 years ago

> What's the difference between tablets and laptops?

Usage patterns. A laptop is just a mobile general purpose computer, to restrict it by restricting say it's OS, you have removed the general purpose nature of the device and this is a loss of functionality.

A tablet on the other hand is an appliance. It has more in common with your toaster, microwave, refrigerator or your DVD player. It is intended to basically do one thing and hopefully do it well. Just like no one really complains that you can't toast bread with a refrigerator, having a tablet sort of locked to one OS isn't exactly that strange of a proposal.

keeperofdakeys6• 14 years ago

In some respects, laptops are the same as tablets. They serve a purpose, the hardware configuration is controlled by a single entity and they are relatively closed. Yet, you think they are different. The answer is that laptops have always been like they have, and tablets have generally always been in a closed state. There is nothing really 'unique' about a tablet that doesn't make it a general computing device, it just has a different input system.

Now personally I love general purpose hardware, because purposes change, and the software on the device should be able to change with it. I don't think a laptop would be viable for me unless I could change the software. You might bring up phones, but there is a reason for that. They used to be embedded systems, designed for a single purpose (and usable only for that purpose). These days they are general purpose devices that also make phone calls (even if this single purpose drives many design decisions).

I've also done crazy things like install an alternate firmware on my router, why, because it gave me more features. This is why I like general purpose devices, and my freedom to change their software to suit my the specific purposes I want. Tablets aren't fundamentally different from a computer, they just have a different skin.

tomrod2• 14 years ago

I'm not familiar with the specifics of ARM devices. Why couldn't one come later and install Linux+variant of Grub to detect the MBR after the Windows install?

esolyt2• 14 years ago

Simply because UEFI will refuse to boot to anything other than Windows

esolyt2• 14 years ago

Great. If ARM starts dominating laptops as well, nobody will be able to boot Ubuntu or any other Linux distribution on them.

mjg594• 14 years ago

The quotations say nothing of the sort. A vendor could provide a dual-boot device providing they have an Android bootloader signed with Microsoft's signing key, which is a service that Microsoft will be providing.

A more open question is whether any of the existing Linux vendors will be doing this. Fedora is willing to use Microsoft's signing service for x86 because users will be able to disable the feature or enrol their own keys. We're not willing to do that for ARM because users won't have that freedom and so wouldn't be able to replace components like the kernel.

brudgers10• 14 years ago

>"A more open question is whether any of the existing Linux vendors will be doing this."

The Market Economics Fairy predicts that they will not given the limited number of people who are interested in dual booting a tablet and the diversity of device configurations likely to be manufactured.

TazeTSchnitzel• 14 years ago

Limited number? Quite a few enthusiasts will buy x86 tablets JUST for this purpose. Sure, enthusiasts, but enthusiasts also drive Linux to some extent.

derrida• 14 years ago

"...a service that Microsoft will be providing." It's now a 'service' to unlock the 'universal' in the 'universal Turing Machine' in my hand?!

gringomorcego• 14 years ago

a patent-pending service as well

drivebyacct2• 14 years ago

The service is NOT provided for ARM devices.

edit: I'm sorry to see the child comment downvoted. I am under the impression that user key enrollment is disallowed, but I'm actually not seeing an mechanism by which Microsoft can prevent the signature of ARM based bootloaders.

That having been said, I don't completely understand ARM devices to know if it's plausible to sign an ARM bootloader with the MS key.

edit2: The person y'all downvoted is the guy who wrote the blogpost outlining the Fedora way of handling this issue: http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/12368.html

mjg594• 14 years ago

You have anything to back up that assertion? It doesn't match what I've been told.

Edit: Right, user key enrolment is impossible on the ARM devices, but we've had no indication that the signing service will be restricted to x86-only.

ck2• 14 years ago

Apparently as consumers we don't own anything anymore, we are just renting it from our corporate overlords.

pooriaazimi3• 14 years ago

You don't have to buy these machines. If you choose to buy it, you've bought a Windows 8 machine and have paid for it. It's not like MS promised you a dual-bootable machine and sold you a single-bootable machine. You know what you're getting, and you can choose whether or not it fits your needs.

Havoc2• 14 years ago

> you can choose

Microsoft isn't known for playing nice & allowing competitors to compete fairly. So yes there will be choice, but relying on that as a justification is pretty risky imo. Esp considering MS's standard MO and history.

Hoff• 14 years ago

Please take a moment to reflect on the current situation before launching the "corporate overlord" and related snark.

Many existing customers effectively do not own what they already have; their systems have been infested with malware and crapplications.

Locked-down bootstraps are the least-bad of a very bad lot of approaches available for dealing with the changes in the user base, and with the increasingly less-experienced and less-DIY users for modern systems.

Security attacks are only getting more subtle, complex and sophisticated. The Microsoft Terminal Server-derived Microsoft code-signing digital certificates is a recent example of the complexity of the environment.

How do you deal with these changes in attacks and with the changes in the user base otherwise, given the numbers of systems out there, and the changes in the knowledge and experience of the user base?

Do any of us like these locked-down bootstraps? Emphatically, no. So figure out another way to ensure this security, get yourself patent or three (and yes, software patents are issued for far too many years) and get yourself rich by solving this problem.

keeperofdakeys6• 14 years ago

I personally don't see many bootloader attacks these days. Consider that SecureBoot only protects from attacks like this, after bootstraping it is upto the OS to ensure security. So purely from this, I don't think the tradeoffs are worth it. Once you have infastructure like this, it isn't hard for it to be misused (even with good intentions).

darkarmani3• 14 years ago

What proportion of attacks are stopped by securing the boot loader like 2%? Does anyone really think this will stop most malware?

showwayer• 14 years ago

It gives me great excuse not to use Microsoft Windows then!

gioele3• 14 years ago

Maybe it is the right time to make all this rage converge into contributions to coreboot [1]. A free working alternative is the only practical way out of this future kind of subjection.

Google has already contributed core for some current Ivy Bridge chipsets. It would be nice if coreboot received more testing and development from a broader audience.

[1] http://coreboot.org

McGlockenshire• 14 years ago

Coreboot is a good thing, but it's going to be hard to succeed without hardware vendor support, and that will be hard to build unless people actually want the product.

I work for a VAR. Our preferred vendor was one of the first to market with motherboards that expressly supported Coreboot. We're supporters of OSS, and so are our customers, so we figured that they'd be popular.

We sold only a handful over about two years. Our competitors didn't seem to have much more success, as our vendor didn't continue the experiment into the following motherboard generations.

dattaway• 14 years ago

Shopping for coreboot devices is frustrating. Google returns products containing pictures of legs.

mjg594• 14 years ago

The problem is not the availability of a free alternative. Hardware vendors could already simply choose not to implement secure boot - the default policy is a single configurable switch during the build. The problem is that vendors believe they can make more money by selling hardware that meets Microsoft's requirements. Coreboot doesn't do anything to help there.

gioele3• 14 years ago

> Hardware vendors could already simply choose not to implement secure boot

You are right, but if we had an easily installable coreboot we could just ignore whatever comes with the computer and just flash coreboot over the existing firmware.

This is basically what Linux people have been doing with Windows in the past twenty years: see that Windows is preinstalled, boot a CD, overwrite the partition table, install distro. But this was possible because in most cases the distro you chose was ready to be installed on a whatever computer you had; the same cannot be said of coreboot.

CUR10US• 14 years ago

Anything that cannot boot from USB, SD card, or some externally connected media, should be approached with caution.

If you can boot from external media, then generally you can dual boot. Someone may have to show you how to prepare media for booting, but it's quite easy once you have been shown. Today's PC's all seem to have good support for booting from external media. Are we going to see this removed in ARM devices?

You do not have to shop for devices that have an "open" bootloader. You have to shop for devices that can boot from external media. (For today's PC's, that's quite easy.) If you have a device that can boot from external media, we can show how to do the rest.

Microsoft Bans Linux/Android Dual-Booting on Windows 8 ARM Devices

Related Stories