Tag Archives: Windows 8

Ubuntu 12.10 and Windows 8 with Secure Boot mode

Posted by on December 18, 2012 No comments

Installing Ubuntu 12.10 on a Samsung Series 9 Notebook has some pitfalls. My goal was to install Ubuntu 12.10 along Windows 8 while using Secure Boot too.

The first challenge is booting from an USB flash drive. You need to enter your BIOS by pressing F2 while booting the system. Change to the “Boot” tab, enter the sub menu “Boot Device Priority”  and move “USB HDD” in front of “SATA HDD” (using F5). Then, curiously, you also need to disable the “Fast BIOS Mode” (tab “Advanced”). You can also use F10 to select the boot device, but “Fast BIOS Mode” still needs to be disabled. Installing Ubuntu should then work as usually.

Even thought Ubuntu 12.10 supports Secure Boot, on my system, the first boot after the installation failed with this Error:

Secure Boot

Image failed to verify with *ACCESS DENIED*.
Press any key to continue.

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Samsung Series 9 13.3″ Ultrabook (NP900X3D) Review

Posted by on December 8, 2012 No comments
Samsung NP900X3D

Samsung NP900X3D

This week I got myself a Christmas gift: A shiny Samsung Series 9 Ultrabook (or Notebook, what they call it). My device came with a Sandisk SSD U100 128GB, 4GB Memory, HM75 Chipset and the Intel Core i5 3317U Processor. The device looks very nice and feels solid. I like the non reflecting screen very much, the resolution of 1600×900 feels right for the screen size (13.3″) with default DPI settings. Finger prints don’t remain on the outside of the device, but you can make them out on the keyboard. The lid shuts very well, but its a bit hard to get a grip on it to open again. The track pad is big, scrolling using multitouch gestures is very nice to use. Sometimes the track pad fires a click when I just try to move the cursor… Nevertheless, really solid hardware!

Windows 8 and some additional Software was preinstalled. After clicking through the Installer my PC was ready for the first real boot test: Boot time is really incredible, something more than 4 seconds after pressing the power button and the lock screen is visible. Well, it takes another two second to access the desktop, but still, very fast! Since I never worked with Windows 8 so far, I was happy that Samsung provided a nice Quick Start leaflets, so I know now how to access and name the new Windows 8 menues 😉 Read more »