Hi All this is my first post on this forum, and I wish to warn people about the dangers of Samsung UEFI and Ubunru 12.10
Those who know me know of my love of Samsung products and Ubuntu
Well I am sad to report the two do not play well together .
2 weeks ago I bought a great Samsung Series 7 (NP 700Z5C-S01AE) 15" laptop which works(ed) well is nice, light and a great performer.
Initially, with UEFI / Fastboot disabled I installed Ubuntu, With the help of this site I was able to get most of the annoyances solved (Manual keyboard back-light, and wireless control from the Fn key remained. Everything was fine and the machine was 99%, I had just one minor annoyance that I wanted to clear.
I then upgraded the firmware to the latest version (004) and enabled the Fastboot which also enables UEFI (BIG Mistake)
UEFI = That horrible M$ invention to stop you installing anything other than M$ products on the computer YOU own.
Everything was still fine and I did several reboots as I played and tweaked my applications
In an effort to fix that final 1% annoyance, I put in a Ubuntu live CD, set the system BIOS to boot from the CD forgot to disable Fast-boot, and then after a few seconds of starting the boot process, a wirring CD and a brief flash on the screen to say UEFI enabled:-
NOTHING...... It did not boot from the CD, it would not eject the CD, and would not even let me in to the BIOS. The machine was now a brick. I could not even enter the BIOS to change the boot order.
I had read about people bricking this same model of Samsung on the Internet by trying to install Ubuntu from a flash drive, but in my case , I did not even get as far as seing the Try / Install menu. All I wanted to do was boot up the CD to extract some files from it.
The computer is now back with Samsung and I am told it will be 2 weeks before they can get me a new motherboard.
Please warn others NOT to enable UEFI / Fast-boot on their Samsung Laptop and hopefully Samsung will soon bring out an updated firmware that allows a LIVE CD to play and any potential UEFI conflict will not brick an otherwise great machine.
I am now wondering if I should sell my new Samsung and buy another brand of laptop. Going back to Windows is NOT an option.