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Comment by frik | Hacker News Reader

They are, PC manufacturer have to lock down the hardware for Win10. Good luck trying to install Linux/FreeBSD/etc on a new notebook. Microsoft is using their desktop monopoly and OEM cartel to lock down the platform.

reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Extensible_Firmware_In...

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I have bought and installed linux on laptops from hp and Lenovo with no problems at all. Also you can buy laptops from Dell with linux pre-installed.

Can you provide any citations for the assertion that Microsoft are currently (2016) forcing hardware companies to tie their products to Windows?

Can you cite your "no problem at all"? That statement is just wrong, if the hardware shipped with Win8/8.1/10 pre installed.

Such devices come with a locked down UEFI, the "legacy" BIOS is deactivated and often hidden behind shortcuts that one has to press during boot. Also it depends if you bought a business or consumer hardware.

Of course I can as it was my personal experience. On the other hand you made a general assertion about their actions which really needs a citation.

Reinstalling an os is a technical task, which requires some knowledge to do effectively. Having been doing this for 25 years or so, I can safely say it's easier now than it used to be...

Good for you. You could provide photos of your UEFI settings and or BIOS settings, and of course you had to change several of them and hold down specific buttons.

And no, it was easier before Microsoft introduced Windows 8 and 10. It was very easy, just insert a CD/DVD with a boot-image. Read about UEFI and "secure boot" came along with Windows 8: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Extensible_Firmware_In...

It's never a good sign for your argument when you have to resort to ad hominem attacks.... No real point I trying to respond if that's your track but remember this is just a discussion on a website, no need to start throwing around personal accusations, for which you have no evidence.

Might I suggest you take a break from the keyboard, perhaps go for a nice walk in the fresh air:)

I've been happily running Xubuntu on an Acer gaming laptop with UEFI with no problems. I did it after my Win 10 upgrade killed my SSD. Yes, I had to do a quick Google search to find out how to get into my legacy bios but if you are going to install a Linux distribution you should definitely be able to find this info no problem.

I believe the concern is that the requirement for manufactures to allow disabling UEFI has been dropped, so new hardware may not make that possible.

Some broken UEFI BIOS refuse to do DOS boot when GPT partitioning is used. It can give the appearance of requiring Windows when you are installing a Linux distribution that does not support EFI boot, but uses GPT partitioning. My guess is that might be causing people to think such things.

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