> if a user is willing to go through the hassle of installing another OS, as easy as it is nowadays, I don't think toggling a bios option is _that_ big of a deal.
It is trivially easy to boot from a USB pendrive; most computers will do it by default if there's no preinstalled OS, many devices have a hotkey you can press/hold which redirects towards booting from USB, and even Windows itself will outright let you do it from the Settings app. You don't even have to interact with the system firmware setup program.
On the other hand, disabling secure boot (or taking ownership of it) is designed to be as difficult as possible, intentionally. Many vendors will actually have a Scary Boot Prompt or the like which makes you double-acknowledge when you change Secure Boot settings, and even reminds you (on every boot) that you have Secure Boot disabled.
It is also unfair by itself that MS OSes will boot without requiring the user to fiddle with the system firmware, but non-MS OSes won't. This puts a glass ceiling on non-MS operating systems regarding how easy their setup flow can be.
> It is also unfair by itself that MS OSes will boot without requiring the user to fiddle with the system firmware, but non-MS OSes won't
Unfair? You're talking about systems that come with Windows pre-installed. Of course these systems are going to be configured for booting Windows out of the box.
>> It is also unfair by itself that MS OSes will boot without requiring the user to fiddle with the system firmware, but non-MS OSes won't
>Unfair? You're talking about systems that come with Windows pre-installed. Of course these systems are going to be configured for booting Windows out of the box.
I think it more _accurate_ to have said "of course these systems are going to be configured to boot nothing but Windows out of the box", which is ... drum roll please.. anti-competitive. Facially, and blatantly anti-competitive.
You're correct of course. Fair would be you can return the license to microsoft on purchase and claim the entire value of your refund. Microsoft have been engaging in the clearest anti-competitive behaviour for decades and it is grossly unfair on consumers, competitors and the industry as a whole.
We really must not conflate "predictable behaviour" or "established behaviour" with "acceptable behaviour" in any part of life including corporate crime.
.. first read through all these comments here, but I see no mention of MSFT commercially inserting Canonical OS products into desktop windows, with extra features added to Ubuntu to restrict and control the internals.. examples are partition type msft-private and msft-data; secretive systemd components; secretive vmx flag use; boot signing and signed applications; snapd container for libssh with auto-updates required to be on.. and more?
It is trivially easy to boot from a USB pendrive; most computers will do it by default if there's no preinstalled OS, many devices have a hotkey you can press/hold which redirects towards booting from USB, and even Windows itself will outright let you do it from the Settings app. You don't even have to interact with the system firmware setup program.
On the other hand, disabling secure boot (or taking ownership of it) is designed to be as difficult as possible, intentionally. Many vendors will actually have a Scary Boot Prompt or the like which makes you double-acknowledge when you change Secure Boot settings, and even reminds you (on every boot) that you have Secure Boot disabled.
It is also unfair by itself that MS OSes will boot without requiring the user to fiddle with the system firmware, but non-MS OSes won't. This puts a glass ceiling on non-MS operating systems regarding how easy their setup flow can be.