Fedora 18 and UEFI

[Heinz Diehl]

On 07.07.2012, suvayu ali wrote: 

> Can I freely choose to use proprietary (or for that matter alternative
> free) drivers for my hardware from whatever source I prefer?

As long as you use UEFI/secure boot, your driver has to be signed.
So you have to build and deploy your own keypair/signatures on your whole
system. Alternatively, you could switch off secure boot, if you have
hardware which allows this.

> A few years back I was in a situation where my USB Wi-Fi dongle was not
> yet supported by Fedora and I had to get the binary blob firmware from
> the linux kernel wireless page and manually install and load it by hand
> to use my hardware. Will I be able to do that with ease in the future?

Both your kernel and your drivers have to be signed. See above.
 
> Similarly, can I choose to install proprietary drivers or kernel modules
> not distributed with Fedora from what ever source I wish (RPMFusion,
> Vendor etc.)?

See above.
 
> I realise I can turn Secure Boot off, but hardware manufacturers have
> often dropped the ball on complying with standards. What if the next
> generation of motherboards/laptops make it harder to turn off secure
> boot?

Then you're f*cked up and HAVE to build your own keys and re-sign
your whole system.