# Can booting FreeBSD brick my Samsung laptop?



## mandeville (Jun 11, 2014)

Hello,

I purchased a Samsung 530U3C/530U4C Ultrabook about two years ago to try out a Non-Windows OS for the first time and told the sales support guy not to install Windows since I would be installing Ubuntu 12.04 (I was told it was a newbie friendly distro). I didn't know at that time but apparently if Windows 8 was pre-installed or UEFI boot was enabled, I would have probably turned my machine into a brick and not be able to get my money back as well:

http://www.h-online.com/open/news/i...g-UEFI-can-brick-Samsung-laptops-1793958.html
http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchae...-to-linux-user-uefi-bios-bug-not-our-problem/

I know this issue now because I have been searching for a new distro to switch to since I am a bit more experienced with Unix-like systems now. I came across it while reading other distro forums such as ArchLinux:

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=157196&p=1

I eventually decided that I wanted to replace Ubuntu on my machine with FreeBSD but I am not sure if this issue is (or ever was) present in FreeBSD. The bug is said to be fixed, but acting a little paranoid never hurts.

I found an option in the BIOS of my machine called "UEFI Boot Support" and it was set to disabled. I also used the following command from the Ubuntu documentation to find out that I had installed in Legacy Boot Mode:

`[ -d /sys/firmware/efi ] && echo "EFI boot on HDD" || echo "Legacy boot on HDD"`

Does that mean it's safe for me to boot and install FreeBSD? I don't know much about UEFI in FreeBSD and especially for the flawed Samsung models mentioned in the first article above, so if anyone can enlighten me I would be grateful.

I looked at the FAQ and the handbook, although I might have missed if there was a section about this issue in particular. I can also give more information about my system if needed.


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## wblock@ (Jun 11, 2014)

Certainly FreeBSD will not be using a Linux kernel module.  And while there is work on a UEFI boot loader, it has not yet been released.

So it's reasonable to say that FreeBSD will not have that exact problem.  It's harder to say whether it will have similar problems.

The links suggest that it's only an issue when using UEFI boot, so sticking with legacy boot might be safe.  Making sure that the notebook has the latest UEFI update from Samsung would also be a good idea.  Optimistically, it's worth contacting Samsung support and asking them about the issue.


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