Aloha list,

Trying to get linux to boot on my new-used T14. This model
has secure boot, came from Newegg with Windows installed.

It took me trying a few different USB ISO images to succeed.
I expected it to boot promiscuously with secure boot turned
off in the BIOS. Not. I expected debian-based ISOs with signed
kernels to boot even with secure boot on. Not.

Now I am running an antix ISO image with secure boot off.
With Windows still installed, the USB image will only boot
by pressing F12 during startup and choosing the USB boot
device. (Perhaps enabling the boot lock BIOS setting will
force the machine to boot the USB HDD set as first boot
device. But I won't risk falling through a one-way
trapdoor.)

I've also disabled OS optimized defaults, to permit
legacy (e.g. MBR) boot options.

https://i.sstatic.net/XpIpO.png

Hopefully I'll be able to pop in my existing nvme drive
(from my old T430) and have it boot up first time.

I chose the amd64 runit version, and out of curiosity,
checked `ps ax` to confirm that runit is process 1.

Cool, now let's look at the manpage for runit. I am
astonished how the whole documentation is just a couple
screens of text. The seven associated utilities are
similarly small.

I'm curious how antix maintains runit config files for all
of its packages.

With a special utility to copy the ISO image, you can run
antix from a USB drive with write access. Also, looks like
antix on USB startup menu has choice to find and boot the
linux kernel on another device.

Overall, I'm favorably impressed.

Awesome work, there, antix and runit developers!


--
Joel Roth