Top all-time · #2303
AdamW on Linux and more
Personal blog · happyassassin.netsystemsprogramming
AdamW on Linux and more is a personal blog at happyassassin.net about systems and programming. Since 2010, 32 different Hacker News readers have linked it 38 times, most often “UEFI boot: how does that work, then?”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-06-26, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (14) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link this blog mainly for its UEFI boot explainer, which commenters recommend as a clear background reference on how UEFI works. Other posts cover Linux on Bay Trail and per-app passwords.
- Recommended for · 4 comments
- Recommended as the explainer for anyone wanting to know how UEFI actually works, a good background article, and a decent though opinionated reference.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 14 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
AdamW on Linux and more
Most-linked posts?
- UEFI boot: how does that work, then?8 people · 9 mentions · first linked 2020-11-07
- UEFI boot: how does that actually work, then? (2014)7 people · 10 mentions · first linked 2014-01-26
- A modest proposal3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2017-09-07
- A note about SSL/TLS trusted certificate stores and platforms (2015)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2017-07-14
- /posts/2016/06/16/on-snappy-and-flatpak-business-as-usual-in-the-canonical-propaganda-department/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-01-19
What Hacker News says?
> That's not a feature I have any intention of using Fair enough, but it is a security feature I can use to harden my system against attackers. Several Linux-distros support this OOB these days. But if you're not interested, no pressure. Everything works fine without it. > Purely anecdotally/ranting, my only real experience with EFI was trying to boot from a USB stick on someone's machine (to try and recover some of…
Comment linking /2014/01/25/uefi-boot-how-does-that-actually-work-then/
on “Microsoft intercepting Firefox, Chrome installation on Windows 10 Insider build”Submitted I don’t like computers as a story · 450 points
HN discussionSnap is horrible. The software required for running a Snap Store instance is proprietary [0], and there are no free software implementations as far as I know. Also, the default client code hardcodes [1] Canonical snap store, so you have to patch and maintain your own version of snapd if you want to self-host. Snapd also hardcodes auto-updates that are also impossible to turn off without patching and maintaining your…
Comment linking /posts/2016/06/16/on-snappy-and-flatpak-business-as-usual-in-the-canonical-propaganda-department/
on “`COPY –chmod` reduced the size of my container image by 35%”Submitted I don't like computers (2016) as a story · 236 points
HN discussionThat’s not a feature of Windows, but simply how UEFI works. https://www.happyassassin.net/posts/2014/01/25/uefi-boot-how...
Comment linking /posts/2014/01/25/uefi-boot-how-does-that-actually-work-then/
on “Rufus: Reliable USB Formatting Utility”Submitted A modest proposal as a story · 213 points
HN discussionLinux runs on Bay Trail, e.g. https://www.happyassassin.net/fedlet-a-fedora-remix-for-bay-... the problem was the 32 bit UEFI. Also solved: http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/155557/installing-li...
Comment linking /fedlet-a-fedora-remix-for-bay-trail-tablets/
on “Foreign Linux: Run Linux binaries on Windows without drivers or modification”Submitted UEFI boot: how does that actually work, then? (2014) as a story · 164 points
HN discussion> Yeah, I really want to write a hobbyist OS atop UEFI & amd64, but … the learning curve is daunting. BIOS is too simple, but UEFI is hyper-complex. That doesn't really seem very representative of reality. UEFI basically takes care of all the terrible legacy stuff for you, so you don't have to. You can just focus on the OS, built on a modern architecture. See my other comment regarding BIOS vs UEFI: https://news.yco…
Comment linking /2014/01/25/uefi-boot-how-does-that-actually-work-then/
on “Writing a Bootloader”Submitted UEFI boot: how does that actually work, then? as a story · 98 points
HN discussionIn theory, I agree. In practice, there doesn't seem to be any other snap store out there? This is a years old quote from [0], but it doesn't feel like anything changed since. > If you want to distribute your snaps, your choices are 1) publish it through the Canonical store, entirely under Canonical's control, 2) upload it as a file and tell people to use the CLI to install it, or 3) try to figure out how to reconfig…
Comment linking /posts/2016/06/16/on-snappy-and-flatpak-business-as-usual-in-the-canonical-propaganda-department/
on “Sosumi Snap – Download and Install macOS in Ubuntu”Submitted On Snappy and Flatpak as a story · 33 points
HN discussionYou seem like a prime target for this article here: https://www.happyassassin.net/2014/01/25/uefi-boot-how-does-...
Comment linking /2014/01/25/uefi-boot-how-does-that-actually-work-then/
on “uBlock Origin for Microsoft Edge”Submitted Bootloaders and machine IDs – AdamW on Linux and more as a story · 5 points
HN discussionCompletely understood by me, hopefully I said this in a way that was productive. :) Per-app passwords have their use cases and I think techs have been banging on it in open source for awhile, example: https://www.happyassassin.net/posts/2014/08/26/adding-applic...
Comment linking /posts/2014/08/26/adding-application-specific-passwords-to-dovecot-when-using-system-user-accounts/
on “Migadu – No-nonsense multi-domain email at a flat price”Submitted UEFI boot: how does that work, then? as a story · 4 points
HN discussionAlternate source, though may be dated to around the time of v2.2 of the UEFI spec. https://www.happyassassin.net/posts/2014/01/25/uefi-boot-how... I find it funny that almost all the real gripes with user freedom infringement actually tend to come as a result of Microsoft or other big players getting their fingers into a hardware platform.
Comment linking /posts/2014/01/25/uefi-boot-how-does-that-actually-work-then/
on “The Ampere Altra Review: 2x 80 Cores Arm Server Performance Monster”Submitted Let Me Put a Fucking Comma There, Goddamnit, JSON as a story · 3 points
HN discussionFor anyone wanting to know how UEFI actually works, I always recommend this article: https://www.happyassassin.net/posts/2014/01/25/uefi-boot-how...
Comment linking /posts/2014/01/25/uefi-boot-how-does-that-actually-work-then/
on “Twitter Client for UEFI”Submitted UEFI boot: how does that actually work, then? as a story · 3 points
HN discussionsuch an interesting thread, thanks for bringing this up! At Packet, we've been working to support CoreOS and their Distributed Trusted Computing ( https://tectonic.com/trusted-computing/ ) for our on-demand bare metal product. This relies on UEFI vs traditional BIOS. Reading up on this I've certainly learned a ton! A good background article I read was https://www.happyassassin.net/2014/01/25/uefi-boot-how-does-...
Comment linking /2014/01/25/uefi-boot-how-does-that-actually-work-then/
on “Test your BIOS and share your results on GitHub”Submitted Unity on Fedora? Possibly as a story · 3 points
HN discussionThat's sort of my point. I'm also an old fogey in Linux hipster-land, who started off with RH5, then moved to Mandrake, then Gentoo somewhere around the kernel 2.2->2.4 transition. It was really important then to know how to identify hardware so you could actually have it supported in your kernel (I don't remember if `genkernel` didn't exist yet or whether I was just trying to squeeze out as much performance as I co…
Comment linking /posts/2014/01/25/uefi-boot-how-does-that-actually-work-then/
on “From macOS to Arch Linux”Submitted CI and LLM Review on Fedora Forge with Forgejo Actions as a story · 2 points
HN discussionMy colleague's rather opinionated blog on this is a decent reference: https://www.happyassassin.net/posts/2014/01/25/uefi-boot-how...
Comment linking /posts/2014/01/25/uefi-boot-how-does-that-actually-work-then/
on “UEFI, BIOS, and other confusing x86 PC (firmware) terms”Submitted A half-assed assessment of open source AI code review tools as a story · 2 points
HN discussionI used to use CSM mode because I didn't understand how UEFI worked, specifically the Boot Manager. My Boot Manager always ended up full of old entries of OSes that I had already deleted, and it caused some issues. This was not a problem in compatibility mode. But then I read an article [1] and learned how to manage the Boot Manager. Then I made a video [2] summarizing what I learned from the article. But to this day…
Comment linking /posts/2014/01/25/uefi-boot-how-does-that-actually-work-then/
on “UEFI-Only Support for AMD Radeon RX 9000 Series Graphics and Later”Submitted UEFI boot: how does that work, then? as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted UEFI boot: how does that work, then? as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted UEFI boot: how does that actually work, then? (2014) as a story · 2 points
HN discussion
