XPost: alt.os.linux.pclinuxos   
   From: stryder@telenet.be.invalid   
      
   On Thursday 18 April 2013 16:45, Bobbie Sellers conveyed the following   
   to alt.os.linux.mandriva...   
      
   >> When Magea 3 is released, I intend to buy a laptop (it will have a   
   >> 17.3-inch display for my old eyes, leaning toward an AMD A8 cpu, hp   
   >> for the keyboard which I like better than the Dell keyboard, would be   
   >> nice if it had Win7 for dual boot rather than Win 8 but the latter   
   >> seems to be the default on machines with the A8- cpu).  If Magea 3   
   >> installs nicely and works on that, I will probably install it on my   
   >> two desktop machines.   
   >>   
   > Well Jim I would do the same but all the new higher powered   
   > systemd are going to be using UEFI with Secure Boot so right now   
   > Fedora 18 and Kubuntu/Ubuntu 12.04.2 and 12.10.2 are the only bootable   
   > distros on those machines.   
      
   I'm afraid that's not correct, Bobbie.  All GNU/Linux distros can be   
   made to work on an x86 system with a UEFI and Secure Boot, because...   
      
     1. Secure Boot can be disabled on x86, and you only need to have it   
        enabled if you are also going to be using said machine with Windows   
        8.  Ergo, with Secure Boot disabled, all you need is EFI support in   
        either the bootloader or the kernel, and all recent kernels have an   
        EFI stub loader, so that they can be loaded straight from the EFI's   
        boot selector.   
      
     2. All x86 machines with a UEFI also offer a legacy BIOS compatibility   
        mode, which allows any operating system for x86 to boot on such a   
        machine.   
      
     3. If you're only going to be using the machine with GNU/Linux, then   
        I would suggest not buying one which has Windows 8 pre-installed,   
        because then you'll be paying for the Windows license anyway.  So,   
        instead go shopping for a laptop which comes with GNU/Linux pre-   
        installed.  Lenovo offers some of those, and possibly Dell and   
        Acer as well.   
      
   --   
   = Aragorn =   
     GNU/Linux user #223157 - http://www.linuxcounter.net   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)