[Live-demo] UEFI booting an USB sticks - 64 bit wrench

[Alex Mandel]

I haven't had a chance to fully test this so I was hesitant to file
tickets yet.

I think I have discovered how to get usb sticks to boot on a Mac, but at
the same time discovered that many high end new machines of all
varieties are about to break our current distro in usb form. The key,
UEFI booting is only supported in 64 bit Ubuntu ( and from what I can
tell that goes for all OSs). Sadly not circumventable like turning
Secure boot off (a tip we should reference somewhere).

Anecdotal evidence, I have several working OSGeoLive usb sticks and just
got a new low end business laptop from lenovo with UEFI booting. I can't
boot osgeo-live on it, but I can boot ubuntu 64 bit live.

So we should probably discourage investment in a ton of usb sticks and
discuss if for 7.0 we might need to also build a 64 bit build or find a
way to bundle both (I think the 13.04 ubuntu live will be both). I
recommend to conferences currently considering orders to do a split DVDs
and USB sticks, and ask recipients which works for them before handing
over.

I'm also exploring a switch to Lubuntu which is now stable and even
lighter weight than Xubuntu, leaving open the door to just build an
ubuntu derivative even more stripped than that if it fixes space and
arch issues.

I'm not even going down the ARM rabbit whole yet with Chromebooks...

Thanks,
Alex

PS: Maybe after our official release Kalxas and I can try to run the
scripts and build an exp 64 bit version.