My kid hates Linux (ZDNet)

Thanks for the pointer about SMM - at least one Microsoftie agrees with you that "SMM is
evil": http://blogs.msdn.com/carmencr/archive/2005/09/01/459194.... 

Summary of SMM: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_Management_Mode - seems this is now
mandated by Microsoft through DMI: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desktop_Management_Interface -
and DMI is supported by some Linux distros apparently.

Any ideas on how to avoid SMM?  Can it be disabled in some BIOSes for example?