Microsoft's UEFI secure boot requirements for Windows 8 logo certification has created a big problem for Linux users. The community has been discussing solutions around the problem. One of the major challenges for the Linux community was the lack of any hardware with UEFI secure boot or an UEFI image which developers can play with.

To address this issue and to give Linux developers a chance to study UEFI mechanism and work on it, James Bottomley, chair person of The Linux Foundation Technical Advisory board, has released a version of the Intel Titancore UEFI boot image and some source code.

Bottomley says this boot image will “widen the pool of people who are playing with UEFI Secure boot.  The Linux Foundation Technical Advisory Board have been looking into this because it turns out to be rather difficult to lay your hands on real UEFI Secure Boot enabled hardware.”

Intel Titancore is an  open-source image of Intel's UEFI. Currently It is in alpha version currently and is “very far from rock solid”. Still, Bottomley is able to create his own secured binaries that will be able to boot and work on UEFI Linux secured systems. This is a big step forward for distros who want to use UEFI security with their own keys, like Ubuntu.

There is still a rift with the Linux community over how to deal with secure boot. This image may help them fine a better solution.