[GTALUG] Questions for sys install

[o1bigtenor]

On Sat, Jan 9, 2016 at 2:15 PM, D. Hugh Redelmeier <hugh at mimosa.com> wrote:
> | From: o1bigtenor <o1bigtenor at gmail.com>
>
> | BestBuy had some systems on sale for after Christmas so ordered an Asus desktop.
> |
> | AMD mobo 6 GB of ram, built in wifi w DVD RW all for can $360 inc shipping.
>
> When asking for help, concrete information reduces uncertainty of your
> reader.  So: what exactly did you buy?

Asus K20BF.

>
> | Now comes the kicker. Wanted to set the uefi bios to boot from Cd-rom
> | so that I could use gparted to give myself some disc room to enable a
> | dual boot system (Debian testing being the flavor du jour). It will
> | NOT boot onto the cd-rom it says that an illegal modification has been
> | made to the bios and the next boot option must be chosen.
>
> Perhaps you left Secure Boot enabled?  I don't think that debian is
> set up to satisfy the Secure Boot requirements.  You can turn it of in
> the firmware configuation (what we used to call the BIOS setup screen).
>
> I'm assuming that this is a UEFI boot disk.  If not, there is more
> mucking about you have to do to enable MBR booting (and CSM loading).

That was the clue that I needed. Secure boot was still enabled. With that
removed I was able to use gparted to reduce the large partition to something
that leaves room for what I want.

I have been mucking about with a server uefi bios and I thought that that
was imbecilic but this one here made the server one seem straight forward
and that's scary.

No wonder most people won't touch their computers - - - the bloatware
malware and useless obsfucation isn't just rampant there isn't anything
else left!

>
> | (There was zero material with this system. It boots and all but there
> | is nothing with it. Even the OS key is burned into the bios. There
> | isn't even a system sticker any more!!)
>
> I'm not 100% sure where Windows license cookie crumbs live any longer.
> Once you update the Win 10, I think they live in Microsoft's database
> (they call it the Cloud to make it seem more new-age).
>
> | Any suggestions on how to get this system to boot onto the cd-rom
> | short of pulling the hard drive and replacing it?
>
> A precise and accurate symptom report might or might not help us help you.

Even the right questions can be useful!!

Thank you!

Dee