Re: Win8 Uefi support?

[Andrey Borzenkov]

В Tue, 28 May 2013 18:39:36 +0100 (BST)
Tom Davies <address@hidden> пишет:

> Hi :)  
> 
> A friend/colleague wants Gnu&Linux on her lovely new laptop which has the 
> misfortune to have Win8 on it.  I managed to get a LiveCd working and it 
> looks like most of the hardware is happy with Gnu&Linux! :)  
> 
> 
> However when the Uefi(?) is switched off so that Cd/Usb Live sessions boot 
> the Windows side gets all grumpy and refuses to do anything.  So i can't get 
> Win8 to boot even after making sure it's the only 'bootable' volume until i 
> switch Uefi on again (at which point i can't boot Gnu&Linux).  
> 

All modern Linux distributions support UEFI. I would be very surprised
if you could not boot Linux because of it. But system with Windows 8
likely also supports and has enabled UEFI secure boot. Which can
prevent booting from removable media (there are reports about it).

Check whether secure boot is enabled and whether it is possible to
disable it.

> 
> My 'worry' is that after installing Gnu&Linux she will never be able to use 
> Win8 again (or more to the point i wont be able to mess around with Win8 and 
> explore in order to see just how troublesome it is).  I get the feeling she 
> would quite happily lose Win8 even if it meant replacing with something 
> better, such as Vista or DVL.  
> 
> Does Gnu&Linux boot-up when fully installed and Uefi on?  Can Uefi be on 
> after i install Grub2?  
> 

Yes, grub2 supports UEFI.

> alternatively
> Can Win8 be made to boot-up via Grub2 with Uefi off?  Chainloading?? (dunno 
> what that means but it sounds nice) 
> 

That is more question for Windows support forums - is it possible to
boot Windows on legacy BIOS if it was installed on UEFI? If yes, grub2
will be able to boot it.

> Regards from 
> Tom :)  
>