Klaus Knopper answers your Linux questions
Ask Klaus

Article from Issue 174/2015
Klaus Knopper answers your Linux questions
BIOS Reaction
Klaus: I purchased an HP Notebook 15 AMD. The BIOS was corrupted soon after. Here is how various distros reacted with secure boot and UEFI disabled:
- Mint – Installed okay with a fuzzy screen appearing in the bootup process. The error message said "the hardware acceleration is disabled and this mode should only be used for troubleshooting." I could use the OS. Mint did not allow me to
su
to root. - Fedora – The install process crashed when a notice appeared saying KVM is disabled.
- Tisquel – The install was successful, but it reported that I was not root during the install process and tried to fix the problem. I never saw the message again.
- Yet Another Distro – Reported that the SMBIOS was disabled and crashed.
- Mageia – Crashed during install.
- Korora – Reported the KVM message and crashed during install.
With secure boot and UEFI enabled, Windows 8 booted up okay and reported nothing. I have tried flashing the BIOS, but it is blocked using the HP BIOS tool from Windows and Wine.
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