If you buy a Windows 8 or Windows RT computer or tablet, yes even Surface, it will come with secure boot enabled by default in their replacement for the BIOS, Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI). I doubt that will actually make them more secure, but it’s always crystal clear that it will make it much harder to boot Linux or any other operating system, such as Windows XP or 7, on them. Fedora came up with a way to get around this problem and Ubuntu Linux has come up with its own solution to the Windows 8 lock box as well (PDF Link). Fedora’s developers, however, don’t like Ubuntu’s answer.

In a blog posting Matthew Garrett, a developer for Red Hat, Fedora’s parent company, wrote Ubuntu’s UEFI requirements are “basically the same set of requirements as Microsoft have, except with an Ubuntu key instead of a Microsoft one.”

Shuttleworth on Ubuntu Linux, Fedora, and the UEFI problem. More >