On Sat, Jul 30, 2016 at 12:24 AM, Steve Petrie, P.Eng. via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote: snip
If I can't get the white box vendor's ironclad assurance of hardware compatibility with Linux, I could wind up stuck with a PC I can't use. I agree it's a small risk. But the advent of "secure boot" and UEFI make me nervous, I understand that these are not yet supported under Linux.
I cannot speak to whether or not it is actually supported but I can tell you that you can install Linux (Debian in my case) on a system with both secure boot and UEFI. (My system was in for warranty repair and when I got it back the main system disc had been replaced. As well the windows boot manager had been enabled (and used), all this even though I had had Debian (testing) installed previously. This were not straightforward but I was able to get things to where I wanted them. Had to disable the windows boot manager and use the UEFI disc configuration (gpart/gparted is your friend here!) and then determine how to work through the secure boot malaise. What I did I don't remember just remember that it was quite an odessey and more than somewhat frustrating but I was successful - - - and I'm not at all competent as a programmer nor any kind of 'under the hood' person when it comes to computers. I'm just a tool user when it comes to computers at this point and wishing I could keep it there!) Regards Dee