I was under the impression that Secure Boot with Win8 was a non-negotiable "feature". But since you can put 7 on it, I guess not.

I've got a Win7 laptop for work that runs Ubuntu in a VirtualBox virtual machine just fine. (I've got a XP VM for it as well.) It's not ideal, but it would get things running in a fairly quick fashion.

Another option is a USB thumb drive install of Ubuntu, if you can't easily put a different HD in it (e.g. replace the DVD drive with one).

Good luck.

Cheers,
Scott.