New BIOS updates will make Windows 11 support less annoying on custom-built PCs:
If you're using a pre-built desktop or laptop PC made within the last three or four years, Windows 11's sometimes confusing, sometimes contentious security-oriented new system requirements won't be a problem for you—all of the security features Microsoft is requiring for the new operating system should be turned on by default. The change presents a bigger problem for people who build their own computers (or who have had computers built for them), since features like the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) are often disabled by default.
[...] Asus is taking the most comprehensive approach, with BIOS updates either available or "under testing" for the vast majority of Intel and AMD motherboards made within the last three or four years (300-, 400-, and 500-series chipsets from both Intel and AMD are broadly supported, covering most 8th-generation and newer Intel CPUs and all of AMD's Ryzen processors). But ASRock has released TPM-enabling BIOS updates for a handful of its newer motherboards as well, and we'd expect other motherboard-makers to follow suit in the next few months. We've contacted ASRock, Gigabyte, and MSI to see if they have any information to share and will update if they do.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Friday August 13 2021, @05:56PM (15 children)
If a custom built PC had a Linux install wouldn't that make Windows 11 support less annoying?
The server will be down for replacement of vacuum tubes, belts, worn parts and lubrication of gears and bearings.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Tork on Friday August 13 2021, @06:00PM (11 children)
Maybe... if you're not a gamer.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday August 13 2021, @06:09PM (2 children)
I'm not. Maybe I'm missing out on something.
The server will be down for replacement of vacuum tubes, belts, worn parts and lubrication of gears and bearings.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 13 2021, @07:20PM
>> Maybe I'm missing out on something.
Yes... a filter to keep you from sharing every damned thought as a comment.
(Score: 2) by Revek on Friday August 13 2021, @08:58PM
Nah, The only games you will have trouble with are crippled with DRM and those are not worth playing
This page was generated by a Swarm of Roaming Elephants
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Friday August 13 2021, @06:24PM (6 children)
There's hope that Steam's new console will force game makers to care about the Linux market some more.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 13 2021, @06:30PM (1 child)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 13 2021, @08:27PM
The game makers working to make it compatible with WINE/Proton on Day 1 would be an improvement over the current situation. Native can happen later after Windows embraces and extinguishes Linux.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Tork on Friday August 13 2021, @06:34PM (3 children)
Umm... why? It's not that I mean to be flippant, but what changed in the last 20 years to suggest this? Even if a de-facto gaming Linux distro somehow willed itself into being how's that going to end up on the zillions of desktops needed to earn the attention of the AAA game devs? It's actually a better bet that Macs* will become the next big gaming platform.
* Hee hee. Sorry I made myself chuckle with that. Us Mac gamers still think Myst is fun.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Friday August 13 2021, @08:12PM (1 child)
Well, Steam is a pretty big game seller. And with their console, they also have some interest for games to be compatibel with it. I could see them putting some gentle pressure on some game devs to make their games compatible with their console if they want to have some "preferential treatment".
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Saturday August 14 2021, @03:07AM
If Steam takes on developing and/or stewarding a Vulkan [wikipedia.org] port on Linux (open source or not - the large game studios don't care that much), it will happen.
Otherwise, no matter how high the gentle pressure level, it will not happen - the OpenGL/GLES [wikipedia.org]support on Linux isn't good enough.
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 13 2021, @09:41PM
Well Geforce Now is quite popular and those games are all sandboxed in linus
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 13 2021, @06:26PM
PCI passthrough is nothing new...
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 13 2021, @06:42PM (1 child)
Does it make Windows 10/11 less annoying? Nevermind.
(Score: 2) by Dr Spin on Saturday August 14 2021, @06:06AM
Yes, but don't tell anyone.
TPM and Windows 11 are just two parts of a plot by the Penguinistas' to make Windows completely unuseable.
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 5, Interesting) by richtopia on Friday August 13 2021, @06:45PM
Even Windows 10 doesn't have this issue. I don't see any game-changing new features in 11. Maybe the Android apps integration, but I'm skeptical that it will work well and also would be surprised if it isn't back-ported to 10 if it becomes popular.
For gaming, I'm excited for Valve's new version of the Steam OS. We'll see if they really can deliver complete compatibility: games like Rainbow Six Siege work fine today except if you play online due to their anti-cheat falsely detecting you as a hacker. I'll try it out and might daily drive it when released.
(Score: 4, Informative) by SomeGuy on Friday August 13 2021, @06:16PM (12 children)
So what exactly does one need "TPM" for anyway? Bitlocker uses it, yes, but perhaps I don't feel I need to use bitlocker. So, what else?
Buy your new Windows 11 handcuffs here.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 13 2021, @06:26PM
>> So what exactly does one need "TPM" for anyway?
It ensures that Microsoft can trust you to run a properly-licensed copy of Windows.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 13 2021, @06:28PM
As always, Arch wiki has superior documentation about how TPM is useful
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Trusted_Platform_Module [archlinux.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ElizabethGreene on Friday August 13 2021, @06:57PM (7 children)
The purposes I understand for a TPM are trusted computing and to store secrets in such a way that they are not accessible to even privileged attackers.
Trusted computing: $vendor makes a digitally signed kernel that I can reasonably trust has not been modified by a third party. I want to verify that digital signature. How do I do it? Using code in the kernel. An attacker could have modified that code though, so that's not a valid test. What I really want is a separate computer running a separate OS that does that validation. That trusted separate computer is the TPM.
Secret Storage: I have a system that I assume is going to be compromised by a third party. I have a high value RSA key that I don't want that third party to be able to steal and use elsewhere. I can ask the TPM to generate that key pair. It gives me the public key and keeps the private key in the TPM. If I need to encrypt something, I ask the TPM to do it. If I need to decrypt something, I ask the TPM to do it. Combining this with Trusted computing, I can set a flag when that key is generated that the TPM will only perform those operations when the machine is in a secure state..
It's a clever system, and very few holes have been found in it so far.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 13 2021, @08:12PM
To add to your excellent list: remote attestation, a.k.a. digital restrictions management 2.0. To make sure you're not watching copyrighted garbage on a non-sanctified device. Because god forbid we let people actually control the things they own.
(Score: 2, Informative) by SomeGuy on Friday August 13 2021, @08:39PM (2 children)
I don't give a shit HOW it can be used. It can be used to rape everyone up their asses. That's not what I am asking.
What does Windows 11 specifically REQUIRE this shit for?
I take it that nobody actually knows. It's just got what plants crave.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 14 2021, @01:17AM
subscribe
(Score: 2) by epitaxial on Saturday August 14 2021, @02:37AM
The OS security is so bad it requires third party hardware.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 14 2021, @02:34PM (2 children)
If I need to decrypt something, I ask the TPM to do it
and what happens when the PC dies? bye bye data?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 14 2021, @04:53PM (1 child)
You keep regularly verified offline backups, yes?
Well, now there's one more reason why you should do so.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ElizabethGreene on Sunday August 15 2021, @02:20PM
That's the gist of it, yes. When the pc dies the data encrypted by the TPM is lost unless you have it backed up elsewhere.
There are some uses where this is a good thing. Assume I want to log in to my device with a thumbprint or facial recognition. I specifically DO NOT want that data stored in a central database or anywhere else off box. I ask the TPM to protect that data and now copies of it off the box will be garbled and useless.
... but that's insecure because an attacker could just ask the TPM to decrypt it.
That would require them to run untrusted privileged code on the machine which is protected by that other feature of the TPM.
(Score: 4, Informative) by sorokin on Friday August 13 2021, @08:49PM (1 child)
Richard Stallman has an article about it.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/can-you-trust.en.html [gnu.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 16 2021, @08:54PM
Sorry, Wokelent News doesn't recognize that pedophilia and rape apologist as any sort of authority any longer.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ElizabethGreene on Friday August 13 2021, @06:45PM (3 children)
Yesterday I learned that there are hardware TPMs and software TPMs. Hardware TPMS are further split into discrete devices (specific single-purpose chips) and integrated (built into other components) varieties.
I was ignorant of "software"/firmware TPMS. There appears to be a functionality difference between these and discrete devices that I don't fully grok yet.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday August 13 2021, @08:47PM (2 children)
FWIW, I'm playing around with virtual machines, and none of my hardware has a TPM. It appears that VMWare has created their own vTPM for use in their virtual environment. Virtualbox does not yet have such a feature, and probably won't until the next major version.
I suppose I'll have to install WMWare Workstation again, if I really want to fool with it.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 5, Informative) by Marand on Saturday August 14 2021, @12:37AM
Qemu also has this [readthedocs.io], so on some systems it's actually easier to run Windows 11 in a VM under Linux than it is to run it on bare metal.
Not that I particularly care about Windows 11, personally; I only use Windows in a VM (using GPU passthrough) for some games and PC VR, and otherwise ignore it completely. So I'm hoping that by the time it's the only option, Steam+Proton will cover enough of my Windows use cases that I won't even have to consider dealing with it. Though even if I do, it'll just be the same "only see the desktop long enough to launch a game or other software" situation it is now with 10. I jokingly call it my "wintendo".
Anyway, I figure I'll leave the VM on 10 for as long as possible because I tried 11 via insider preview and found it to be rather unpleasant for desktop use in many ways. There's some streamlining and clean-up of some things from 10, like the setting application being overall nicer in 11, but the start menu and taskbar manages to be less useful than 10 due to removal of options and features. For my limited use, if I have to deal with Win11 I found it so useless that I'll probably just put it in Big Picture mode (or the upcoming Steam Deck UI that Valve said will replace it) instead of dealing with it at all.
Probably won't even work right when (if) it gets it, considering VirtualBox has been a garbage fire for years. The Oracle acquisition of Sun did the software no favours. It used to be really solid but kept getting worse over time, until it eventually had so many problems, missing features, and broken functionality that I eventually gave up on it completely and went for qemu+kvm with virt-manager as a front-end. The main thing VirtualBox had (and still has) going for it is the UI was really nice, but eventually the problems outweighed the convenience for me.
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Saturday August 14 2021, @04:43AM
Hyper-V has virtual TPMs as well, FWIW. I've used them, but I'm not terribly familiar with them.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Friday August 13 2021, @08:04PM (8 children)
annoying software doesn't get installed.
But in today's world, you fight Windows, Android and iOS to prevent them from exfiltrating your data against your will, or display ads, or upgrade shit you don't want them to upgrade, or plain run on your perfectly fine older computer that doesn't happen to have a 1984 chip in it. Because more often than not, there's no alternative and you have to stick with the damn OS.
This definitely isn't the digital future I was promised when I was a kid...
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday August 13 2021, @08:41PM (2 children)
Worsening chip shortage will apparently limit supply of Windows 11 compatible PCs and laptops [notebookcheck.net]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 13 2021, @10:33PM
nice
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 14 2021, @02:40PM
who the heck is going to do that?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 14 2021, @12:16AM (1 child)
Yep. I abandoned Windows when Win10 came out, because privacy is impossible on Windows now. Moved to a Macbook, since Apple was the privacy company. That didn't last long.
That Macbook and my current iPhone are getting long in the tooth. I was going to wait until this winter to get a new Mac Mini and new iPhone, to get the hopefully released by then newest versions. Now I'm going to be buying a Mac Mini and iPhone at the end of this month, so I can get them with the current version of their software that doesn't have the photo scanning in it (supposedly). Neither will be updated. This is to buy time.
I've hauled out my ancient Windows 7 box I built ten years ago. I'm going to disconnect the hard drive (remember those?) with Win7 on it and put in a new hard drive to install Linux on it. Probably Ubuntu (or whatever the hell it's called). I plan to slowly learn Linux, and see if the software I use on my Mac has versions or acceptable equivalents that work on Linux. If I fuck it up, I can always revert that box back to Win7. I'll have the Mac still to use for day to day shit while I learn Linux. If I can convert over fully to Linux, I'll get a new machine to run Linux on. Hopefully by getting an iPhone now, I'll have three years at least in which the Linux (or other OS) phones can become more mature.
Why the fuck am I going to so damn much trouble? I'm a private person. I don't want others, be it megacorps or my neighbors, looking through my stuff. Sure, everything I have is legal right now. Who knows what will be made illegal ten years from now? We're already in a world where people have lost their jobs for what they said on the internet over a decade ago, so don't tell me that I'm being paranoid. Of course I'm paranoid -- but am I paranoid enough?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MIRV888 on Saturday August 14 2021, @12:50AM
Ads for things I have never searched for ,but which i have spoken about creep me out. I know I sound like a tin foil hat person saying that. It's happened way to often to be happenstance.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 14 2021, @12:54AM (1 child)
I'm pretty sure when I was kid the future involved either space colonization, ray guns and completely autonomous robots, or a sandy wasteland full of scantily clad but terribly mean people.
And we didn't get even one of those.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by Anti-aristarchus on Saturday August 14 2021, @01:20AM
Hmmm, "Mad Max" or "A Boy and his Dog"?
But both of those dystopias pale in comparison to "Windows 11: Beyond the TPM". It does go all the way to 11, now, so it is much better than the amps that other bands use. And there may come a day, when I run Windows, BUT THIS IS NOT THAT DAY!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 14 2021, @12:53PM
I remember this as a kid. The fight against TPM and "trusted" computing. There were predictions it would lead to you getting locked out of your system. Everyone was up in arms and then it was forgotten. Now we finally see the fruits of their endeavors many years later. They got everyone all comfortable and now they are finally starting the crackdown to compete with the one happening in real life.
(Score: 3, Informative) by MIRV888 on Saturday August 14 2021, @12:44AM
This will be the OS that will move me fully to Linux.
I can barely stand Windows 10 as it is.
(Score: 2) by TheGratefulNet on Saturday August 14 2021, @12:56AM (2 children)
but NOT for host based systems.
not from an UNTRUSTED source. MS and apple are, to me, entirely and completely untrusted.
but anyway, on things like cars, you want secure-boot and a whole chain of trust for OTA updates and all that. you need secure hw support and on the automotove grade hw, you get that (see 'tricore aurix' for one example).
but on host stuff?
you assholes are drunk with power. go home and leave your 'keys' here.
(lol)
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Saturday August 14 2021, @01:25PM (1 child)
Embedded vs host, what is the difference really?
Do you need secure boot on a printer for instance? To prevent fitting incompatible ink carts that might damage it or be unsafe? Or is it just to enable ink profits by the mfr? [remember where Stallman got started?]
Do you need secure boot on a mobile phone? To prevent unapproved software driving the radio chip to illegal frequencies? Or is it just to enable the mfr / carrier to force load software & ads you don't want?
Do you need secure boot on automotive? I mean clearly to prevent people doing unsafe mods? Except people mod auto hw all the time without it being a major issue, and mfrs now use the secure boot shit to arbitrarily prevent other mechanics fixing the car and even to turn off "features" of the car, like refueling (or re-charging, *cough* Tesla *cough*) whenever they feel like it?
Do you need secure boot on an iPad? I mean, isn't it just a PC without a keyboard? Do you need secure boot in aviation, say for the kit (EFB) that pilots use to carry all their nav charts, operating manuals, quick reference manuals etc.? I mean clearly, yes, right, it's safety critical? But: *It's a ****ing iPAD*.
End of the day, secure boot is a _tool_, you may need it, you may not, it can be useful and it can be misused including by mfrs and suppliers to control and abuse end users.
It is that abusive control that needs to be regulated, not the tool.
(Score: 2) by TheGratefulNet on Sunday August 15 2021, @02:17AM
Embedded vs host, what is the difference really?
embedded does not allow user to get 'to' the system; user does not install things to the system, does not have login ability, and true embedded does not do dynamic anything (no malloc, no fork(), all tasks (not procs) are defined in a table and that is what runs).
if you are not embedded, to us embedded guys you are a host and that even includes servers. you are below embedded or above it.
above it, I dont care ;)
at embedded, like a car gateway, no user has any right to get to that box. period. full stop. it should boot the flash image that is blessed by the car maker and all boxes in the car that are from the factory and connected to the car network also should secure boot from the correct matching os image.
that's what I mean.
(its what I do, so I know a wee bit about it)
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 14 2021, @01:30AM
Ok, I think I will be fine with playing emulated video games under Linux once Windows 10 bricks itself in a forced update.
PSX emulation is pretty good these days, and I haven't really played many video games since the PSX era.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 14 2021, @08:02PM
what kind of loser builds a computer and then puts Windows on it? LMAO!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jahaven on Sunday August 15 2021, @12:41AM
ArcaOS is getting ready with UEFI support, so my migration will be complete in this year :)
https://www.arcanoae.com/blue-lion/ [arcanoae.com]