Suggestion for "Installing an OS on DIY" email

Framework Laptop 13 Linux
1

I suggest adding to a note to the email, that for installing some linux operating system (like Arch) secure boot needs to be (initially) disabled.

Because Windows did not come preinstalled on this laptop, I was not expecting secure boot to be enabled. I also did not check the menu, because I immediately went to the settings menu and looked around there. Finally, the error message given when secure boot fails is not helpful at all because it does not mention secure boot.

I think it would be very helpful to add this note to the Installation email.

2

Framework has a page on Linux distros that are officially supported or community supported.
frame.work/linux
And it links to setup guides. I think that would be the place for distro specific notes, such as the need to initially disable secure boot.

For Arch they link to the Arch wiki. I’d like to add a note there, but I don’t run Arch, so I don’t have the answer to their wiki spam protection

To protect the wiki against automated account creation, we kindly ask you to answer the question that appears below (more info):

What is the output of: LC_ALL=C pacman -V|sed -r "s#[0-9]+#$(date -u +%m)#g"|base32|head -1

Possible typo? disabled > enabled

3

The supported Linux distributions like Fedora and Ubuntu support secure boot (including booting with the default Microsoft signed key), so it makes sense to be enabled by default for all models.

Also I feel like stating in an email that secure boot needs to be disabled for Linux would be confusing for the same reason.

2 Likes
4

I was thinking more like this:

If you’re installing another Linux distribution, you might need to temporarily disable secure boot as some installers don’t support it.

But I’ll definitely add a note to the Arch wiki page @MJ1

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5

There is ~one “Windows” we know, there are plenty of Linux distributions out there.

  1. If you don’t know Linux, you install one of the officially supported distributions.
  2. If you know your way around linux, you can install whatever you want. I assume you’ll read your way through docs and troubleshoot the sh* out of it.

That’s the Linux way. The choice is yours.

2 Likes