Id like to hear thoughts. Of course us gamers hate kernel level anti cheat, but is that actually tied to secureboot?
I know some/most distros can boot in secure mode, so it doesn’t seem like an issue there.
With all the new games moving to it, looks like we will all have to sit them out or install Spyware (microshit) to play. I will opt not to.
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Kernal level anticheat is invasive and the vast majority of anticheats are probably installing spyware with root access.
All secure boot does is ensue the binary (say, Linux or Windows kernel) run in early boot is “trusted,” meaning it’s cryptographically signed by a key the motherboard has. You can usually load your own keys and sign your own binaries, but I imagine only large orgs do that if they have a lot of Linux systems or something.
The way Linux works with this is they use a shim binary that is signed by Microsoft’s key, and that binary loads the actual Linux kernel. The kernel itself is not signed with that key.
The only way this impacts gaming is if games check if Secure Boot is enabled. If it is enabled, the game knows the system booted with something signed by a key the motherboard trusts. For most systems, that means Microsoft’s keys, but AFAIK, they can’t check what key was used in early boot unless the kernel provides some indication of that.
Basically, it’s an anti-tampering check, so they have some assurance the kernel is untampered from what the maintainer released.
Some newer distros like Bazzite are pretty awesome in that they install their own Secure Boot keys during the first time setup.
That’s pretty dope! I imagine we’ll see more distros follow suit as the September expiration of Microsoft’s keys approaches.
My distro, openSUSE Tumbleweed, does that as well, but I imagine plenty don’t.
Did Novel git gud?
Apparently. OpenSUSE is going hard on the “we build quality” angle, and I’m here for it.
I kind of assume Microsoft’s real motivation was to make Linux harder to install, and the “oh it’s more secure” stuff is a happy coincidence for them.
Worst part is everything has to use Microsoft’s signing keys, so it’s ironically a gigantic security hole if your threat model includes being on Microsoft’s shit list.
Only by default. You can load your own keys instead of Microsoft’s, and some Linux distros do just that.
Which makes this requirement even more meaningless because someone who wants to cheat by running a modified kernel will obviously know how to follow a tutorial to add his MOK and sign his version of the kernel.
Yup. All it does is restrict less sophisticated users, but surely they’d also be willing to follow a guide to configure it.
I’ve avoided kernal anti-cheat basically forever on principle. On the plus side, there is talk about Microsoft kicking 3rd parties out of the kernal on windows, stemming from the cloudstrike debacle. If they kick out anti-virus, I can’t imagine that they let game publishers stay. We might actually see the death of kernal anti-cheat soon.
On a side-note, it’s a really sad state that so much of the world runs on computers but the majority of people don’t know the first thing about using them. It has led us to so many bad places today that I really didn’t expect when I was a teen…
Crowdstrike*
Secureboot is a security measure to make sure the boot environment have not been tampered with. It would notify about malwares that are able to modify the boot environments.
I personally don’t find it makes Linux harder to install, like other suggested. Unless you use a surface device, it will happily accept the key for most common linux distro, including Ubuntu and Fedora family. For other distros, you can easily register its key via MOK (obviously require admin privilege for security purpose).
However, if you need to load additional kernel modules, like nvidia drivers, secureboot can get quite annoying. I am actually quite interested in why Windows don’t have a problem loading additional drivers, yet linux do.
In the end, I feel if you use a distro it supports there is no reason to leave it off; if you find it annoying, yet okay with a downgrade in security, then you might want to leave it off.
Isn’t Windows a hybrid kernel? Perhaps things like drivers technically don’t run in the kernel and instead technically operate outside of it. Linux loads kernel modules directly, so maybe that’s the issue?
Or maybe drivers are also signed by Microsoft’s key?
I don’t know a ton about Secure Boot, so maybe it’s something else entirely.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ it’s not necessarily bad afaik, but it is a hassle if you don’t use windows, so it’s not something I plan on putting up with really
Thankfully none of the games I play seem to be going that route (yet)
The games that use it seem to be made by companies we shouldn’t be supporting anyway, so win win.
Linux does support TPM and secure boot: https://wiki/ .debian.org/SecureBoot#What_is_UEFI_Secure_Boot.3F
So the problem is really only about kernel level anticheat, not the secure boot itself ?
It’s not all bad necessarily, but that “anticheat” vendors are demanding it sure does suggest it’s being used for nefarious purposes.
Except it was never about cheaters. It’s about DRM. You don’t own the things you buy and they want to make sure it stays that way.
No, it’s not actually bad, it can just be a hassle to deal with. Much like when TLS was becoming the norm for websites there was a bit of an adjustment period when things weren’t always configured just right or folks didn’t have good auto renewal yet. It doesn’t mean the tech is bad.
It depends. If it’s under your control with your own keys then it can be beneficial. If it’s under someone else’s control (as it is for most people) then it’s a step towards the walled garden.
🤭 nobody 🧵 talk𐑙 b𐑬t CVE-2025-7027.
𐑓 commoners.
Others have already explained the secure boot process. But one thing that might impact gaming is that TPMs also implement cryptographic acceleration in hardware. Not only does it speed up operations, it guarantees that the binary code for the library running on the chip hasn’t been modified.
Some anti-cheat libraries might require the TPM and having secure boot on guarantees that feature exists.
The biggest issue to me is that if you (the OS maker) wants a shim so you use your own CA, you have to go through Microsoft. And they can just say no.
I think Tuxedo is still waiting on their shim.
Secure boot is BS
