Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop
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> So today we have marketing departments who say things like "we don't need computers, we need... appliances. Make me a computer that doesn't run every program, just a program that does this specialized task, like streaming audio, or routing packets, or playing Xbox games, and make sure it doesn't run programs that I haven't authorized that might undermine our profits". And on the surface, this seems like a reasonable idea -- just a program that does one specialized task -- after all, we can put an electric motor in a blender, and we can install a motor in a dishwasher, and we don't worry if it's still possible to run a dishwashing program in a blender. But that's not what we do when we turn a computer into an appliance. We're not making a computer that runs only the "appliance" app; we're making a computer that can run every program, but which uses some combination of rootkits, spyware, and code-signing to prevent the user from knowing which processes are running, from installing her own software, and from terminating processes that she doesn't want. In other words, an appliance is not a stripped-down computer -- it is a fully functional computer with spyware on it out of the box.
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUEvRyemKSg
Transcript: https://github.com/jwise/28c3-doctorow/blob/master/transcrip...
One should also watch the (IMHO unfairly) less well-known sequel Fighting Back in the War on General Purpose Computers
It is also slightly depressing in how right he is - back then I thought the guy was sounding kind of paranoid, but with every passing year and every new wave of hype (the cloud(TM), IoT, "Industrie 4.0", ...), and with every case of stuff like Superfish, I think of that talk and cannot help thinking that he was right all along. (It is a lot of fun to listen to, though, Doctorow is a great speaker!)
If I buy a device that is advertised to do X, and this is accomplished by running a program to do X on a locked-down general purpose computer, then it is (assuming no issues with program X) fit for purpose by any definition. If I wanted a general purpose computer, I would purchase one. The fact of the implementation detail being a general purpose computer is irrelevant, it doesn't impair my ability to do X if I cannot remove X and install Y, in fact it improves the ability to do X, by preventing the possibility of all sorts of misconfigurations and installation incompatibilities.
I admit that it's hard to find real-world analogies, and the landlord-cupboard above is not a perfect fit, but I still have no problem with saving money by purchasing a device that does one thing, and one thing only. I have no expectation that it be hackable or extensible, unless it is advertised as such.
It also made me realize how important it is to have a community on which one can rely to spread problems like this one. Several people on their own can't do much against big companies, but a big tech commnity can.
I never think that a support forum should be owned by the company.
There is a clear conflict of interest. The company does not want you calling them out on product flaws or their behaviour, on a site that they own and that reflects on their brand and products.
It's a shame that fora frequently are not financially viable, as they do need to exist to provide a centralised place for consumers to gather, share problems, diagnose and solve them.
Companies shouldn't run their support forums. Instead, companies should offer a better level of support by default.
To clarify, by "run" do you mean "have one" (that they therefore by definition operate) or do you mean exercise moderator power over?
Off-topic, but for future reference:
fora = forums, viri = viruses, indices = indexes, formulae = formulas,
etc.
I suspect same is true for viri/viruses and formulae/formulas but I'm not even worried enough about to check. Me saying 'viri' or 'formulae' would be me being a person I don't want to be.
He may be forum sliding, creating crufty noise, to dilute communication.
It's not even possible to re-install Windows on this machine let alone Linux.
https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/forums/forumtopicprintpage/boar...
https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/forums/forumtopicprintpage/boar...
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
And why would Microsoft be behind blocking Linux and windows installs, and reinstalls ...
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Acer used to do something somewhat similar on some Aspire models (disabling option to enable Vx at BIOS) so using VirtualBox was a no starting, but with some creativity and long winded efi vars mounting and fiddling you could get it working or break your system, not soldering though :)
I'd be interested to see how it pans out Lenovo community admins are worse than Acer community. At least with Dell I find a few engineer on Twitter and ping them..
That's incorrect. Someone from Lenovo had already posted in the thread saying that it had been escalated.
That last post also makes it clear that the thread isn't locked, but that you can't use Lenovo forums to call for a boycott of Lenovo products or to coordinate lawsuits against Lenovo. That doesn't seem particularly outrageous to me.
Well, it had been escalated two months ago and not only there's no fix but not even an explanation why somebody made the deliberate effort to disable standard AHCI mode.
It's not some weird and difficult bug which should take months to track down, but an obvious intentional kludge. All they have to do is say why they did it and either revert this BIOS patch or explain why they can't.
swings a lit lantern around the marketplace at noon
BIOS IS DEAD! AND YOU HAVE KILLED IT!
After SuperFish, Omniture, and whatever their third malware scandal was, you still need a reason not to buy Lenovo?
I debated the Carbon X1 at the time, but I recall it was limited to 8GB of memory. I regularly work with Java-based ETL tools and datasets that spill out of 8GB, so having 16GB was important. I could have gotten more memory if I wanted a bigger form factor but I really didn't want to lug a "workstation replacement" around.
A couple of years ago I said if the Macbook lasted as long as my Thinkpad X200 did (4-5 years), it would be a reasonable purchase.
If I was buying today, I might just buy some type of large screen Chromebook and do everything on some cloud VM instance with even more memory.
Dell's business practices were a big contributor to the current situation, but I'm getting close to overlooking that.
This sounds believable to me. But I'll put my tinfoil hat on just for fun and pretend it was an intentional move. Could this make sense as a new twist on the old strategy, making it "Embrace, Extinguish, Extend"? With the WSL, they made it theoretically possible to run Linux software on Windows. With that in place, locking existing users out of Linux might cause a lot less negative backlash as the users can still continue to use their old programs - except under the supervision of Windows. If this catches on, it could actually allow Microsoft to grab some if the more consumer-oriented parts of the Linux ecosystem.
I'm scratching my head here. Help me out. I've seen extremely limited consumer take-up of desktop Linux.
Edit: it'd be rather amusing and saddening if this whole controversy was caused merely by someone misunderstanding/misreading a perfectly sensible requirement to disable the RAID mode, and instead disabled the other options. Given the level of communication fluency among some programmers, I would not be surprised if this were the case; and the fact that the machine still boots into Windows because it has drivers might've let this slip past QA...
Sure, real/standards-conforming NVMe would be better -- and wouldn't require driver shenanigans in either Windows or Linux -- but there should be a performance advantage to 'RAID' mode in this case.
On the other hand, Microsoft could have easily gotten a much more "robust" lockdown - by simply demanding mandatory, unchangeable Secure Boot like on the ARM tablets. But they didn't do that.
Didn't you hear that Secure Boot is basically broken?
Flagged as a dupe. It's here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12545966
I'm sure anyone with enough knowledge to decompile a BIOS would have obviously thought of that idea though. I'm guessing the BIOS images are signed or something?
Regardless, this smells evil to me...
In reality the agent probably misunderstood what's bring asked.
In reality the script read, "can I buy this with linux installed?", the answer would be only "windows 10 signature edition".
They probably don't even know what linux is.
> This system has a Signature Edition of Windows 10 Home installed. It is locked per our agreement with Microsoft.
> I've been able to successfully get past Lenovo's lock through direct bios flashing. I'm looking into better solutions, hopefully I can find a way to do this without an external programmer. I was going to keep people updated from the Lenovo forum, but as this is no longer an option I will keep people updated from here.
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/53ri0m/warning_micro...
As a default it would be fine, if it could be changed without removing the BIOS chip.
It's a locked UEFI setting causing a problem: true. The setting is causing a piece of hardware to behave in a mode not handled by the current Linux driver: also true. So there are two ways of looking at it.
First: It's a software issue that Lenovo should clear up (i.e. remove the locks on the appropriate parts of the UEFI configuration)
Second: It's a hardware issue that the Linux community can address by writing a driver for the alternate hardware mode.
Lenovo apparently wants to treat that computer as an appliance; if someone borks their installation enough that even a system restore won't fix it, it's a call to Lenovo support, and a bill if the machine's out of warranty.
For customers whose Windows installations are working correctly, it's access to a faster, more power-efficient driver. That's how it makes sense, IMO.
Thus, this laptop can only ever be installed from the Lenovo win10 media. No win7, no win8, no retail win10 (for now), and .... probably as a (not unwelcome) side effect, no linux.
Still, just as evil and despicable.
So using that install media you can extract the drivers and install older windows versions anyway.
So it's a pretty crappy conspiracy :)
The API/ABI for drivers didn't change between 7,8,10
And it does effectively stop users from installing Linux, Win7, Win8 and even Win10 - except from the provided Lenovo install media; which makes Microsoft happy (no Win7/Win8) and Lenovo happy (full control of installed versions).
A serious question: What gives Linux users the right to expect that Linux will run on any given PC / laptop?
Think about it. These PCs/laptops are designed to adhere to Microsoft's Windows PC hardware standards doc (which was never, ever an open standard) and, with few exceptions, only tested against various versions of Windows. Linux users are failing to receive a feature that they were never promised in the first place so it's unclear that they have any valid cause for complaint.
Perhaps Linux, BSD, etc. users should be creating their own PC standards doc and asking OEMs to adhere to it instead?
Nothing. It's very well possible that in future, we have Apple devices that only run iOS, Google devices that only run Android/ChromeOS/Whatever and Microsoft devices that only run Windows 10 - and a large server market with a tiny consumer segment of devices that run linux.
We'll all be fine in that world. We just won't have any control about our devices anymore.
Perhaps Linux, BSD, etc. users should be creating their own PC standards doc and asking OEMs to adhere to it instead?
That's actually a good idea in theory - so far that "standard" had been the x86/x64 IBM compatible PC. Except that I fear they lack the market power to actually make such a standard more than a stack of paper. You'd need an OEM network the size of Microsoft or enough capital and brand trust so you can make your own devices. I see neither for linux.
I expect any computer I own to run anything I put on it.
Locking out software is like a car maker trying to control what brand of gas you put in your car.
None of those other examples are sold with the intention of the user changing the system in a way unexpected by the vendor.
PCs are supposed to be open-ended, and for this you typically pay more for the hardware capability than a product which serves as a gateway into a walled-garden ecosystem (phones, gaming consoles, etc.)
Any cpu in my household is mine (presumably.) I don't care what peripherals it has, it's just a computer.
From my POV all those devices are just computers with various peripherals. I don't see any way in which attaching a specific peripheral changes the universal nature of the cpu.
A offline (PDF) version is available at the bottom-most link on the page.
If I buy some hardware, I've done research on whether all of its chipsets and devices have Linux driver support just as a matter of course, because I don't expect that Linux will run on every PC. But I feel like I have a right to know if a company puts a non-standard artificial restriction on their hardware. Apparently in this case, Windows 10 doesn't even have the driver included by default, so I can't even reload the software that the machine was designed to run, on my own. That sounds like a defect in the product, to me.
Where? I'm looking at http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/yoga/900-series/yoga-90... and the specs page lists only Windows 10 Home and Pro in the operating systems section.
> and effort was expended specifically to disable that option
Lenovo has issued a formal statement denying it. http://www.techrepublic.com/article/lenovo-denies-deliberate...
I was imprecise. The chipset supports a Linux-compatible option, were it not explicitly disabled in the firmware.
> Lenovo has issued a formal statement denying it.
They deny purposefully disabling Linux, and I don't have any evidence against that denial. They don't deny disabling AHCI, because they clearly did. In the disassembly of the code: https://lnv.i.lithium.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/76843...
Intel's RAID is implemented in their driver. Switching the option from AHCI to RAID switches the disk controller's ID so it doesn't bind to the OS's standard driver (whichever OS that is), and binds to Intel's instead (assuming it's present). Intel provides its driver (and only for Windows), Lenovo locks the option so that hapless users mucking about in the UEFI settings don't make their machines unbootable.
Lenovo can deny "deliberately blocking Linux", but they can't deny "practically blocking Linux".
How else am I going to avoid the crapware/malware that lenovo is famous for?
Happens that the same BIOS tweak that prevents windows from working also prevents linux from working.
I don't expect lenovo to spend time/effort accommodating linux, but I also expect them to not artificially limit when I can do with a laptop I purchase.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:fossbos...
The article looks dangerously uninformed, from a brief skim.
It's based on https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/53ri0m/warning_micro...
I can't find any info on what SSD the Lenovo Yoga uses but if it's anything like the NVMe drive in my Dell XPS, it's just the way the card is set up.
Depending on which kernel your installer is using it won't see the NVMe drive as it simply has no drivers for it.
Of course Reddit has gone off without anyone actually confirming what the issue is. Microsoft would be smart to come out with a statement on this if it picks up any steam.
Now, of course the rep might be mistaken. We need official clarification from someone higher up. But we won't get that until we go off on one and this goes viral.
It is not up to the rest of the world to divine meaning from Lenovo's PR policy. If they are happy to allow nitwits to make public statements like that, they should be fully prepared to handle the fallout.
> Thank you for confirming it is still not possible to install Linux on Yoga 900-13ISK2 systems.
> This issue has been escalated to the Development team. I am unable to offer a timeframe for fix at this stage in the investigation. With previous cases, BIOS fixes have been delivered anywhere from several weeks to several months.
> I will post again when I have more information on the investigation.
One user Bownairo confirmed that changing the drive to AHCI mode did fix the problem by allowing the drive to be recognized in Linux, after manually flashing a modded BIOS by soldering chip programming hardware:
I wonder what it'll take to get Linux to see the drive in RAID mode.
djpohly and the BIOS hackers deserve some credit too for their REing:
https://www.bios-mods.com/forum/Thread-Request-Lenovo-Yoga-9...
Conditional flag locking users out of the Advanced settings page (with the RAID settings) of the BIOS, as shown in disassembled code:
https://lnv.i.lithium.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/76843...
You have to go there to see it for yourself. Imagine the way that HN is paranoid of the US government, but then double that and apply it to Microsoft, which makes even less sense. To them, MS is the boogeyman that will stop at nothing to prevent them from being the glorious 1% that doesn't use Windows. It's still the 90's on /r/linux, in many many ways.
I have no serious position on whether Microsoft is currently enforcing secret deals to sabotage Linux, but I'm sure the employee assigned to respond to product reviews would not be given such inside information.
But there Linux should've booted, I was trying to change some energy saving settings.
So it might be that this is not a "by contract with Microsoft we locked down the Laptop to only boot Windows", but a "by contract with Microsoft we locked the Bios, which has the side effect of preventing booting Linux because the Kernel does not support yet a specific setting, which will change". Who knows.
It's still a bad policy, and even if it were an accident they have to fix it. They can not be allowed to prevent Linux from booting.
While OEMs try to spin crapware as a value add for the consumer, it's actually paid product placement. The OEMs make money off of installing crapware on your PC.
So, if the Signature Editions don't have crapware then that eats into the OEM's profit margins. What incentive do OEMs have to deploy the Signature Edition? Does Microsoft offer it at a lower cost? Do they pay OEMs to make Signature Editions?
It's entirely possible that if Microsoft is selling the Signature Edition for less or even paying OEMs to deploy it, then they might also make greater demands about system configurations and even ask that the devices be locked.
Microsoft requires Secure Boot on all Windows machines but only requires locked firmware on Mobile/RT devices. It's possible they could require locked firmware on Signature Editions as well.
The article is based on many sources, in the original forum thread on Lenovo forums there are many people who faced the problem with other models, some weren't even Lenovo but the problem with Lenovo is that the BIOS is locked completely, those people (using ASUS and Dell laptops) confirmed the problem is solved after the switch to AHCI from RAID.
1. Lenovo is usually one of the first choices for a Linux laptop.
2. Lenovo obviously has made the call here to ignore the Linux community on their forums.
3. Lenovo has actually stated "This system has a Signature Edition of Windows 10 Home installed. It is locked per our agreement with Microsoft." -- whatever that means.
4. Win10 dropped the requirement that Secure Boot can be disabled. This has already been filed as a complaint to the EC:
I remember when in 2012 secure boot was announced for the new
Windows 8. I am from Spain, and at that time a lawyer (Jose
Maria Lancho[1]) that was the president of a Spanish LUG
(Hispalinux) create a official complain to the European
Commission about the Windows 8 certification program in
relation with the requirements of Secure Boot.
At that time the certification program describe that one of
the requirement was to have an option to disable SB via UEFI,
but only for desktops and laptops, but not for tables. Now
this option is not anymore required for the Windows 10
certification program. That point was one of the argument
that we exposed in the complain.
Is very sad to see that the circle is closing as we
predicted in the complain, and with this new Signature
Edition thing a new movement in this direction. And so far,
the European Commission is not doing anything in that
regard, and less and less hackers, lawyers, and groups are
fighting against this kind of movement.
P.S. that missing NVMe power saving piece is now implemented for Linux and will hopefully be queued for Linux 4.9 :)
Quoth BaronH:
> Nope. You can turn Secure Boot off on the Lenovo Yoga models that this affects.
> They have the SSD in some strange "RAID" mode where Linux can't see or be installed to it, and neither can Windows unless you add some drivers to your Windows installer media. They removed AHCI mode from the BIOS. Then they wrote additional code so if you try to toggle it to AHCI mode with an EFI variable from EFIshell, it immediately sets itself back to RAID.
> For the last 11 months, they were silent on why this machine was configured this way. The only reason we know why now is because Lenovo answered my Best Buy review by stating it is locked due to the agreement they signed with Microsoft for the Signature Edition PC program, so it's very likely that all Ultrabooks in the Microsoft Store, and some outside the MS Store (such as at Best Buy) will eventually be configured so that Linux can't be installed, even if there are some now where you can install Linux.
> So consider "Signature Edition" a warning label that means "You aren't allowed to run Linux, per Microsoft.".
[2] http://www.theverge.com/2016/1/16/10780876/microsoft-windows...
Maybe because good-old-IDE or even AHCI was too simple and open.
Also the system fan is constantly running. I went to their support site and the online support is not available in my country and the "contact support" system doesn't/didn't work (opened some empty box in the website). Super frustrating.
As much I hate to admit it, the ThinkPad is no longer what it was back in the IBM era.
Combined with stories about vendor lock in. I'm saddened to say that this shall be the last ThinkPad/Lenovo that I'm purchasing.
That said, I also use a X1 Carbon, which runs great with Linux and doesn't have any problems at all concerning hardware and drivers (graphics card, mobile broadband, two external monitors via DP all works flawlessly and the battery lasts 6-8 hours under normal use). I'm confident that the Linux support for the T460p will improve as well as developers have time to write better drivers, after all it's still pretty new hardware (barely six months old).
But hell it's a great laptop for its price.
If however what you're lamenting is the idea that we have to look somewhere other than Apple these days, then I have to agree with you. Their lineup is truly forgettable in the above-starbucks market, tragic considering the history of the macbook. Maybe just maybe that'll change in October, but then we'll still have to deal with the iOSification of OSX to the detriment of developers. Also I'm a big mech keyboard fan and the rumoured oled bar function key replacement idea does NOT work for me unless they open source it (haha).
Lenovo has lost my business. The ThinkPad is not for Linux any more.
When my x1 dies, I think I'll just continue and get the then current generation x1...
Also Dells being finicky? Never heard of that, but wouldn't doubt it either. I think the XPS line works well with Linux. I know someone who used Ubuntu exclusively on it for a long time.
They changed the finish a bit so that carbon-fiber texture is gone, and they removed the physical volume button above the function keys, but at least there's proper function keys now (unlike the third gen, I think).
I got mine with 16 GBs RAM and 1 TB SSD.
I had to tell someone :P
The bad side in disguise is that these machines are tough. They usually last five years of daily travel and daily usage, so I'm still three or four years out of a decent trackpad.
For whatever reason, the device only exposes some sort of RAID controller to the OS, and for whatever reason, there's no working option for exposing a more standard AHCI interface instead. The problem is that Linux doesn't (yet) have a driver for that RAID controller.
Okay, great. Linux doesn't yet support particular piece of hardware. News at 11.
Just like usual, if you want odd hardware to work on Linux, you'll have to write some drivers. That's just how it is. This is nothing new or scandalous. The reasons why Lenovo doesn't support AHCI don't matter. They don't, so now somebody must write a driver for what they do support. Once that happens, nobody will complain anymore. It's that simple. Nothing is being locked with Secure Boot; nothing is being locked with crypto; there is no DRM at play. If you want hardware support, write a driver.
As for all the Lenovo-bashing going on here... My personal experience with my new Thinkpad P50 has been overwhelmingly positive. It's working on Gentoo Linux entirely: https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Lenovo_ThinkPad_P50
This isn't linux's fault for not supporting some non-standard raid driver, this is lenovos fault for not allowing users to change the bios settings to non-raid.
Also, just because you are been using a Thinkpad sucessfully (which is largely been immune from the issues we are talking about compared to the rest of lenovo line), to use that to dismiss the very real issues regarding lenovo's recent moves is disingenuous at best.
Lenovo made a computer that exposes hardware to the OS for which Linux does not yet have drivers. They could have exposed a more standard interface, but they didn't. I guess this is their fault, okay. But again, what's the big deal? What's next? You'll be upset when Synaptics releases a new touchpad with a different protocol, for which Linux doesn't yet have a driver? You'll scream and complain, "they could have supported the other protocol! they could have unlocked it! it was just a few bits inside the internal SPI flash!" Okay. But they didn't. Now write a driver if you want it to work.
I'd be upset if they used some kind of crypto secure boot situation to lock down the device. This seems very far from that, however.
> Also, just because you are been using a Thinkpad sucessfully > (which is largely been immune from the issues we are talking > about compared to the rest of lenovo line), to use that to > dismiss the very real issues regarding lenovo's recent moves > is disingenuous at best.
I didn't mean to dismiss anything except for some comments I've seen in which people said Thinkpads are awful on Linux. Thought I'd chime in to offer a differing experience.
They provided a new proprietary storage interface, because it's purported to be Faster, and the better performance should benefit Windows users.
I vote incompetency and apathy on Lenovo's part, not malice.
Now, this piece of hardware removes support for the standard way to access the hard drive. Why did they do that? Hardware engineer couldn't fix a glitch in a new chipset in time to fix the issue in time to ship? Exceedingly unlikely. You only change those chips when you have to, because of cost or design constraints, and Lenovo is shipping other, similar hardware that does work with standard storage drivers.
Someone (one person!) managed to flash the BIOS to add AHCI support, but certainly I don't need to point out that this level of tinkering is equivalent to a crypto secure boot situation for well over 99% of laptop-buyers. That is, they would not be able to defeat either.
Now, a large portion of those buyers are not even aware of linux, so it's very easy for them not to care. Some people take umbrage to the argument-from-not-caring (I've got mine! My video plays fine! etc.), not because you have shown that their position is wrong, but because it seems to them that you are arguing that you understand that they are screwed, you are not, and "too bad for you".
At last job, we had to wipe machines back to the version of Windows that came with them in order to get Lenovo to honor the NBD support we paid for, even when it was obviously not a software glitch (displays dying or DVD drives not reading discs in any OS). We kept a couple spare hard drives around with vanilla Windows installs for this reason.
We were pretty excited when Dell started shipping their Developer models. Told Lenovo to pound sand when it came time to refresh.
I don't think many would care, but the lenovo 710s has some pretty unique hardware. Nice intel CPU, nice intel GPU (iris 540), and a nice matte screen.
The Dell XPS 13 is similar, but to get the nice cpu/gpu you have to get a shiny/reflective screen that cuts your battery life almost in half (22 to 12 hours).
I did have the motherboard die on this three weeks in, though, which has been frustrating. When it works it's a nice system, a nice counter to the trend of everything being made out of cheap plastic. You can get nicer specs for the same price but it'll be a physically cheaper machine.
I've actually had more trouble with the Windows side in terms of drivers. The parathetically-aforementioned pre-emptive replacement of the wireless was on the advice of a coworker who had trouble with the card in Windows. When you turn off the RAID so you can install Linux, the NVMe drivers in Windows become unstable. Some people apparently install the Samsung 950 Pro drivers, which can then have its own problems because of hardware mismatch; I accidentally resolved this problem by purchasing a Samsung 950 Pro anyhow. (I wanted a nice flash drive but didn't want to spend the $$$ upgrading all the other things in the pre-packaged configurations. Plus they don't say what their flash drive is, it's probably not as good.) Also it seems to help if you remove the Dell drivers for the headphone port and revert to the reference drivers, as otherwise the machine can hang when you plug headphones in under load. Which is sorta dumb. I recommend making the first thing you do with the system to build a Windows 10 install image and then make a clean install after turning off the RAID, but be sure to bundle the drivers on the Dell webpage onto the install media, particularly the wireless ones. (I didn't know this at the time, but apparently Windows 10 has licenses stored on the motherboard now, so you don't have to hassle with license keys. It just installs.) Apparently there's some way with fighting through the RAID setting change to repair the system but a clean install is nice for other reasons. (Not too much crapware, but, still.)
I will agree that the previous is a potentially frustrating set of issues for either OS for a brand new, high-end laptop. I'm used to beating my laptops into submission anyhow since I run my own quirky XMonad install and other such things, so getting this all slick was just par for the course for me. Assuming this stays working I'm quite happy with it (I'm even really liking the keyboard which a lot of people complain about, so YMMV), but it certainly could have been a nicer experience.
Battery life is quite poor despite considerable tweaking. Rarely get more than 2-3 hours of reasonable (low % cpu) use. Disable WiFi and decrease screen brightness and i can get 9-10 on an aircraft on a long flight. I fell it is getting worse over time too.
I've also had WiFi driver issues with suspend and resume on linux AND windows. Assumed it was just Ubuntu and their horrendous lack of QA for hardware. My wife also has the same issue on the Lenovo Yoga Pro 2 on win 10. I just rmmod and insmod the wifi kernel module to repair. PITA.
i had similar trackpad issues, these have been resolved.
Keyboard is way way too soft/shallow. Could be an issue on most laptops these days.
Speakers are on the base of the unit and are incredibly quiet. Quiet to the point where if you have a gentle breeze whip up you completely lose the sound.
Considering the cost I'm not impressed. The screen kills it for me. even glare reflecting off windows wipes it out at max brightness.
Next time I can afford an arbitrary laptop, it will me another Dell Mobile Workstation like the M6500.
(In the market for a new laptop, and the X1 Carbon is/was on the list.)
Despite that, I am making new purchases with Dell mostly because of price and service. Check out the Latitude E7470 in comparison to the X1.
My "upgrade" is an XPS 9350 for 2.5x the price. Windows 10 still doesn't handle high DPI screens well, and until recent updates there were issues with the Broadcom AC wifi card. For Macbook Pro money, I expect better. There's really nowhere to go for power users who need powerful laptops under 1.5kg.
There were incredibly irritating keyboard debounce issues (and yes, I was running the latest BIOS version available at the time) and there were also issues with the touchpad glitching out (messing with the mouse cursor position) with X restarting every now and then due to the broken touchpad driver. Really disappointing for a laptop with Linux preinstalled, and I've avoided Dell ever since.
To top it all off, it became painfully obvious that the Linux DEs weren't able to do a seamless job of supporting a high-DPI screen (I got the 4K edition) or multitouch touchscreen and interfaces like the login screen were unreadably tiny. I know this got fixed in a more recent version of Ubuntu, but I don't understand why Dell ever shipped the laptop they did.
Some controls won't scale up (Java Swing is particularly miniscule), otherwise it just works compared to most other desktop environments I tried last year.
1) Great battery life, lousy cpu, nice matte screen, not much ram available.
2) Half the battery life, nice cpu (i7-6560), nice GPU (iris 540), and a 3200x1800 reflective screen that reduces your battery life from 22 hours to 12.
The Yoga 710s (sadly with the broken BIOS that prevents linux from installing) is much like the theoretical XPS 13 without the power sucking 3200x1800 display.
So I was just looking for a decent laptop, decent build quality, and wanted to avoid the pain/suffering relating to trying to get nvidia working with a laptop that sleeps, switches to the internal intel on battery, and has some stupid system for moving pixels from the nvidia chip through the intel chip to get to the frame buffer.
My laptop won't even POST with RST on, so I can't meaningfully experiment.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
(and, honestly, were finally succeeding at, to the point where I'm very close to willing to give them the benefit of the doubt here: how the hell could the benefits of such a thing come anywhere near to outweighing the amount of damage it would do?)
I remember the lawsuit against TomTom in 2009, because they used the FAT32 filesystem through open source drivers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Corp._v._TomTom_Inc.
No, the title and "secret agreement" theory is just BS.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor
>Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
MS hasn't been the boss of anyone much ever since 2005 or so...
It is also doing quite well recently in the corporate desktop (see IBM adopting Macs, etc). Heck, they almost dominate the "startup founder/employee" desktop, as well as the "university student" desktop.
Do you have a source for this? I know it's the case with their phones, but they also have a much larger market share there. It's hard for me to believe they get "most of the profits" from the PC market with their minuscule share, especially when their computers are competitively priced.
Apple sells 5% of the world’s PCs and takes home 45% of the profit. (1)
During the recent third quarter, Apple commanded a 7.5 percent share of the computer market, up from 6.9 percent a year ago, IDC said. That was enough to move Apple up to No. 4 in market share for the computer market, pushing past Acer, which is now No. 5. (...) Each of the top five personal computer makers suffered a decline in total shipments, but four — Lenovo, HP, Dell and Apple — all captured a larger share of a shrinking market. (2)
* Apple's total share of the global PC market grew to 7.4 percent in the first quarter of calendar 2016, good for fourth place globally, according to IDC. That's up from 6.7 percent in the same period a year ago. (3)*
In fact Apple has such high per-PC revenues that it’s actually now the third-biggest PC maker by revenue – excluding Dell, because we don’t know what Dell’s revenues are, because it is privately owned. (4)
(1) http://fortune.com/2013/04/16/pie-chart-of-the-day-apples-ov...
(2) http://www.siliconbeat.com/2015/10/09/report-apple-widens-sh...
(3) http://forums.appleinsider.com/discussion/192668/apple-grows...
(4) https://theoverspill.wordpress.com/2015/07/13/the-deaths-of-...
Or get those Linux community to organize, and establish some body to create, and secure, keys for Linux that will be installed by default alongside MSs.
As someone who suffered from at least a couple BIOS-based malware back on Windows PCs back in the day, I'm all for securing the bootloaders...
A centralized key is not secure. A secure key is not centralized. If you want any security, the computer owner must be the only person allowed to install keys on the boot sequence - what is the exact opposite of what MS mandates.
A centralized key IS secure, just not AS secure as a not private key.
(That's theoritically: in practice it can be even safer than a private key, because most end users are incompetent in managing their keys much more than the central entity would usually be).
And it's wrong to think it as a key in the sense of a physical key. It actually used as a signature.
You can't have "private signatures" because the very purpose of a signature is to verify that the thing it signs is signed by a specific (and in the case of operating systems, central: the vendor) entity.
An OS the user signs itself is worthless, as the OS data he signed could have come from anywhere or tampered, etc, before the signing.
I think he means about character of those persons, who were something upfront and really creaky behind.
Like BillGates, who have done some bad things in past...
So sure, they want ubuntu to run on windows, so they can get into the container market.
So sure they will sell office in the cloud to target the legions of chromebook users. Not that they would ship office for linux.
Nor would they consider supporting linux on their surface books.
The locking linux out of various platforms with EFI seems to be progressing nicely.
But sure, microsoft will meet you half way to steal your customers and try to find out some other way to lock them into a microsoft platform.
If true, it's illegal product tying, and those who signed such "agreement" are violating antitrust law. Someone should sue them until they stop doing this. Lenovo are infamous for refusing to refund Windows tax until brought to court, but this is a new low for them.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/09/sony-wins-pre-ins...
> However, the CJEU doesn't rule on the dispute itself. It's left up to the national court, in this case the French Cour de Cassation.
And actual Cour de Cassation already ruled in the past in case of Lenovo, that they must refund Windows license to those who reject the EULA:
https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichJuriJudi.do?oldAction=r...
Hopefully Sony will go bust on this one and will be forced to pay what's due.
However, I'm glad this is making this type of fuss. It means bad PR for Lenovo if they don't do any Linux QA (as they mostly never did). Good.
I am attempting to install ubuntu 16.04 on my yoga 900.
The bios can see the 512 gb samsung hard drive and so can Windows.
The ubuntu installer can not see it at all.
I have the same issue with the 900S model.
I have tried the newest kernel 4.6 but linux doesn't
even list the pci express device in lspci.
[1] https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Linux-Discussion/Yoga-900-13ISK...
Did I dodge a bullet here? It came with Windows 10, but perhaps it wasn't this 'signature edition'.
The "issue" that came up today in this article has absolutely nothing to do with SecureBoot.
Probably our best saving grace against that is how rapidly mobile is cannibalizing the desktop/laptop market. Probably not even worth the antitrust probes in Europe to attempt that anymore.
But I don't blame people for being immensely skeptical given Microsoft's actions on mobile. Best case, we're paranoid, PCs end up fine. Worst case, PCs are locked down, and "I told you so" won't help reverse it.
The PC market and mobile phone markets are very different, with a huge precedent already being set that mobile ARM devices are locked down. Are you equally upset that iPhones and virtually all Android devices also have locked down bootloaders?
On top of this, Microsoft cross signs the keys used to sign the Linux bootloaders so that they work out of the box even on computers that have only the default MS keys enrolled.
Considering that most people fail to grasp those two salient points when presenting their conspiracy theories... yes... I feel comfortable dismissing most of them out of hand.
Nobody ever goes from one extreme to the other. Restrictions are added a little at a time to minimize the outrage.
Look at Gatekeeper on OSX. "Oh it's just an option", then it's enabled by default. "Oh you can just turn it off." Now it automatically turns itself back on every 30 days. Their next move will likely be to require all apps to be signed. Again, if I'm wrong, great! As someone who releases OSX software but won't pay Apple for the privilege, I hope I am.
Further, you don't always have to go 100% restrictive to achieve the same effect. Look at web browsers and self-signing certificates. Sure, you can still accept and install them, but it's been made such a pain that nobody can really pull off a self-signed website.
What serious OSX developer is going to release unsigned software that requires people to go in and turn Gatekeeper off every 30 days? It might as well be mandatory for all the choice developers looking to earn a living on that platform have these days.
> Are you equally upset that iPhones and virtually all Android devices also have locked down bootloaders?
Yes! There's not really much of a market for alternative phone operating systems; but even still, I buy Android because I can sideload regular applications without hacking ("jailbreaking") my own property.
That Linux lacks drivers for something and Microsoft somehow got the blame for it as part of some grand conspiracy? Certainly predictable for /r/linux. I thought HN was better than that.
With a tweaked BIOS (one that permits the AHCI setting), Linux can be installed.
I would classify this as a hack rather than "can be installed"
Who is this Hanlon guy anyway.
The kids these days don't realise just how much of what's fucked up about PCs these days is directly Microsoft fuckery.
Groklaw's pages on the Comes case are a good start: http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20070220083801...
Except where malice has previously been proven, in which case go wild.
EDIT: http://imgur.com/a/niewu
I have a recent X260 running Fedora 24 and I'm very happy with it, and with Fedoras support. I use both smartcard and 4G data module with it. Only thing I don't use is the fingerprint reader.
Only sad bit is that I had to disable SecureBoot to run VirtualBox. I would have happily signed the VirtualBox kernel modules if it wasn't for Lenovo missing a small detail in the implementation of the UEFI spec that enables users to write their own MOK.
And if on virtualbox - you don't actually know if it would run on metal. VirtualBox hides quite a lot from you.
(I expect that it will run on metal - I just don't think you have evidence one way or another if you are running it on vbox)
No, it doesn't, at least on Fedora[0]: “When Secure Boot is enabled, the EFI operating system boot loaders, the Fedora kernel, and all kernel modules must be signed with a private key and authenticated with the corresponding public key.”
[0] https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fedora/24/html/System_A...
However, I also want to run VirtualBox inside Fedora, because my job requires me to have a Windows VM. And VirtualBox has its own kernel modules, with SecureBoot they need to be signed. Unfortunately the poor UEFI implementation Lenovo has provided won't let me enter my own MOKs into the UEFI because coincidentally that little write call is missing.
I dunno, tinfoil hat surgically implanted under my scalp, it feels like they're not making it easy for Linux, when the Linux community is doing their best to adapt to SecureBoot.
Edit: And just to be clear, I did of course disable SecureBoot at this discovery but it was sad to do so because I had hoped to see how well Linux had adapted to this new tech that came out several years ago and was heralded as a Linux blocker. ;)
It's virtualbox which for some reason won't upstream their kernel modules, so they have to be compiled and installed by its users.
The discovery of kimchi made me try KVM and it's a very nice web gui for home use, or laptop use. So yes I might just replace VirtualBox with kvm soon. I just have no experience with the guest drivers for Windows provided by libvirt.
And PR: https://github.com/rhinstaller/shim/pull/60
Hopefully $DISTRO will patch it soon so you can enroll keys. : )
So the only real outcome from this would at first glance appear to be to antagonise people who won't consider their product either way and cause bad PR.
The question is if there's any other/better rationale.
I've successfully switched both parents to Linux and non tech at our company run completely on Linux.
It's a real threat, especially with MS failing to innovate.
Today in 2016, Linux is the superior platform for both user-friendliness and stability. It is easier to use and install on a wider variety of hardware. The old belief that Windows is "easier" is deprecated, and it is time to change the conversation to reflect that truth.
Linux does not exceed windows at user friendliness.
Stability completely depends on your hardware, distro, and use case.
It has made great strides, and windows is regressing, but it's not done yet.
In Linux, if you're missing something it's a simple matter of "apt-get install something" and it almost always works. The rate of failure for Windows updates and installing proper drivers and software in windows is much higher.
And Linux is far more likely to work out of the box on most hardware. Windows installs never have more drivers available than what ships on the CD/DVD. With Linux Net Installs, as long as your Ethernet is supported, and it probably is supported, the rest of the system will be up-to-date.
I have recently installed Windows 7, Windows 10, and Linux, I've used each for a number of months. Linux was the easiest and friendliest. I've been using Windows for years so I'm not a newbie, it's a terrible operating system.
This was an unrestricted claim that ignored a massive amount of Microsoft innovation. I pointed out that you were wrong and now you're quibbling about another of your personal opinions. Why make the same mistake twice?
Seems to me that the whole Microsoft Windows ecosystem -- across Azure, PCs, games consoles, smartphones, and iOS and Android devices -- shows far more innovation than Linux.
If you want to provide a list of Linux innovation to compare with my incomplete list above, I'd be interested to see it.
Be even better if you could address the whole market, without restricting it to your personal peccadilloes.
You're quoting somebody else there, friend. I jumped on this particular subthread because I wanted to point out that your list of innovations boils down to "Microsoft improved the user interface for touch devices."
> your personal peccadilloes
Peccadilloes? I do not think that means what you think it means.
Sorry. My apologies!
> I jumped on this particular subthread because I wanted to point out that your list of innovations boils down to "Microsoft improved the user interface for touch devices."
No, it doesn't. I use most of them on a desktop PC that doesn't include touch. Also, cloud and cross-platform capabilities go beyond touch.
> Peccadilloes? I do not think that means what you think it means.
I know what it means. And in the UK, it's not specifically sexual in connotation. However, I did spell it wrong ;-)
Also, an agreement to lock out Linux might not be legal from an antitrust perspective, whereas an agreement to restrict usage to the current version of the OS is much less critical.
This seems to be the most reasonable theory in the entire discussion.
Data looks like the new business model of Windows.
Some organizations (including, I think, London police) are still rolling out Windows 8.1 with full Microsoft support.
Windows 7/8/8.1 are all supported for 10 years under Microsoft's standard published software lifecycle.
So people have suggested in the past that Microsoft might ask for favours in return, basically telling OEMs that if they do not comply they might loose cheap OEM versions or even all access to OEM version of Windows, which would make their products unfit for competition.
Other people have suggested that this would be illegal, that Microsoft would never do something as anti-competitive like that, and that Microsoft just gives away nicely priced OEM versions of Windows to manufacturers because they are really nice guys and want disseminate their products even if they don't earn much from them.
The Comes trial is a good start http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20070220083801...
This left Linux with no cost advantage on parts, or a negative cost advantage, if you added more crapware.
The much higher costs of shipping Linux then killed off the Linux netbooks.
The higher costs included extra testing and parts qualification, extra shipping and advertising costs, and, in particular, massively increased support costs. (One Linux user support call wiped out the profit margin on multiple sales.)
I'll see if i can pick one of these up on my way home and do some testing :)
Why is it OK to lock down smartphones, TV devices, consoles, but not OK for PCs?
It was the 3rd party suppliers (i.e. BIOS by companies like Phoenix, Award, AMI along with motherboard manufacturers etc.) selling picks and shovels to the would-be prospectors (i.e. clone assemblers) that allowed for the 'open' PC standard. For example, there was a company call PCs Limited that licensed AMI BIOS so that they make some IBM clones... they did kind of OK and soon renamed themselves Dell...
Some of the other companies I mentioned were the ones that followed Compaq's lead and did their own clean room versions which they then sold to everyone else who came flooding into the market.
As an aside, this was actually a problem for the first few years: take multiple independent clean room implementations, bake in some silly things that the manufacturers did with them (gotta customize, right?), and combine it with the bad programming practices of the day (i.e. programs written in assembly doing jumps into undocumented portions of the BIOS because, hey, it worked on the IBM and saved a few bytes/cycles or did something useful...) It was similar to how well web standards worked not too many years ago with multiple browser implementations doing/interpreting things slightly differently and developers doing things they shouldn't because they could... and that was with a public spec designed to be copied. Eventually things get worked out, but both had a rough start.
Unlike its competitors, Spectrum had standard phone jack connectors for sound and magnetic tape recorder (so you could use any recorder). It also had a direct circuit board connection to the system bus on the back, and the schematics were available. My father built us the 8255 interface to have joystick and other peripherals connected.
And you surely could not overwrite it.
There weren't many useful things in the ROM, if you were writing your application. Maybe the font table and tape loader. On the other hand, if you were able to ignore the ROM, you got few bytes more of RAM, because you were able to repurpose the "system variables" area.
The biggest "problem" with ROM that you were unable to replace it with RAM (until next reset, for example), thus taking precious 16kB out of 64kB address range.
It's however particularly unacceptable to lock down what used to be open.
Then tension is that we've almost always been able to install Linux on standard Windows machines and so have gotten used to it being open, but I'd be loathed to say (if the manufacturers have decided to make it tricky deliberately or just not thinking) we have a fundamental right to do it.
But there is a right not to buy this stuff and a right to tell other people not to buy it, too. There is also a right to tell the vendors how much you abhor them for selling such closed products and there is a right to tell journalists or other people why buying closed products is a really bad idea. And you have a right to lobby to make producing/buying closed products socially unacceptable.
Ever since not preventing you also meant not preventing others, and thus malware, exploits, pwnage, stolen data and passwords, etc.
And ever since what you wanted to do was hurting others (e.g. not driving while drunk, even if its your car) or violating other's copyright.
Seems like it's "okay" when you can get away with it. But not okay when large group of people get some slight inconvenience.
If the technology gets convenient and cheap enough, they might not be.
"Most Japanese domestic market vehicles are limited to 180 km/h (112 mph) or 190 km/h (118 mph)." Almost twice the common maximum speed limit (100km/h).
E.g. with an unlocked Android device, I will typically at most install a different rom that's largely the same as the stock rom. Various small enhancements but nothing I can't live without.
But a PC that can't run Linux is entirely useless to me.
Once, just before Blu-ray was a thing, I encountered a "HD DVD" which was a data DVD containing a Windows Media file. This used the embedded DRM licensing system to call home to a server when you played it, and refused to run if your source IP was not in the US.
It isn't - and this is why I don't own a smartphone, smart TV or game console.
IMHO, it is not OK to lock down things you own. I have been a victim. I bought an AppleTV v2 and a planned obsolescence by Apple and Google rendered it useless (with a YouTube API version requirement).
PCs are special in that, they are general purpose devices and not appliances. If you are using it as an appliance, chances are, you are not interested in running another operating system on it.
But a monopoly mandating interacting products to lock down is a completely different game.
The post even describes the issue pretty explicitly as "Linux isn't loading the correct disk driver", yet it still spun as some intentional FU "block". I guess with a domain like "fossboss.com" you should expect the lowest form of the Slashdot mentality. I very much hope HN doesn't start to deal with this sort of pure flame bait.
It just doesn't make a bit of sense. If Microsoft wanted to block Linux, they would just require that SecureBoot not be disabled and require disablement of user key enrollment.
Besides, a clean copy of the Windows installation media doesn't boot normally either unless you slip the Intel RST driver into a custom built version of the install media.
This is just another conspiracy that I don't think makes any practical or logical sense.
Seriously, though-. If Microsoft blocked Linux overtly, they probably couldn't get away with it so easily; they'd end up with a PR disaster and/or an antitrust lawsuit. Plausible deniability helps them; now you can bet some people are going to say "come on, firmware screw-ups are no news, what are you, some kind of conspiracy theorist?" I mean, they have already taken advantage of ACPI in this way once.
(Tongue in cheek. It's not so totally implausible.)
Their modus operandi is to violate their antitrust agreement with the DOJ as non-obviously as possible with a nod and a wink and funnel campaign contributions to the relevant parties. If it becomes too blatant, however, the DOJ will be forced to punish them.
Then they came for spammer license deals, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Windows User.
Then they came to install back doors, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Windows User.
Then they came for my ability to install Linux—and there was no one left to speak for me.
If Lenovo lose customers over this, it may be the case that they won't care, but in that case a competitor will surely swoop in to catch those customers by supplying PCs that run Linux.
In any case, the market should continue to supply machines that run Linux, as long as there is a demand for them. So if you demand a machine that runs Linux, just vote with your wallet!
I think this is very much a sliding scale. And that therefor the quote very much applies.
If (IF) a time comes when the only software available is proprietary, restrictive, invasive and possibly insecure, in a world where software is ubiquitous and often essential, I think that could be bad. The definition of fascism does come to mind.
Microsoft blocking installs of Linux on computers that I own, seems one of those steps to me.
You mean like up to the late 90's when most of us used to pay for software?
At the top of the slope, it's "merely firmware, what is the problem?". At the bottom of the slope are warcrimes and genocide. It is very hard to stop sliding down a slippery slope once you've started.
So when you disallow Linux on a laptop you are very much at the top of the slope. And there is a long way to go. But my, oh my, it sure is slippery.
Because we live in a digital age. More and more so. And in this age, there is no way to have 'checks and balances' without access to the source code of the software. And without checks and balances, it is very hard to have Separation of Powers[1].
Interestingly enough, I've found that survivors of WW2 tend to understand this better than most.
Otherwise, "my friend", one invites analogies to Godwin's law, and rejection out of hand for using a reductio ad Hitlerum.
People make slippery slope arguments all the time, but often (and quoting your [0]), "as a form of fear mongering, in which the probable consequences of a given action are exaggerated in an attempt to scare the audience. The fallacious sense of "slippery slope" is often used synonymously with continuum fallacy, in that it ignores the possibility of middle ground and assumes a discrete transition from category A to category B. In a non-fallacious sense, including use as a legal principle, a middle-ground possibility is acknowledged, and reasoning is provided for the likelihood of the predicted outcome."
What was missing, in the recasting of Niemöller's poem, was the 'reasoning ... provided for the likelihood of the predicted outcome'.
Certainly bugs in Telegram and the use of the wrong social software among dissidents (or software that unknowingly leaks, or is endemic like windows) has everything to do with how they are spied upon. Many of those dissidents are from ethnic minorities that are targeted or will be targeted.
The holocaust was a terrible thing, but not talking about any road signs to the next genocides to avoid upsetting people isn't the prevention mechanism my history teachers had in mind.
User languagewars is in good company. Orwell compared early dissidents in USSR to chickens in his Animal farm. Jesus compared Kindom of Heaven to mustard seed, himself to wine and bread, redemption to finding a coin and true faith to freaking oil lamp. Plato compared whole human existence to group of dudes sitting in a cave. Socrates compared himself to gadfly.
This is one of the most used literary vehicle. By the best and most famous thinkers of all times.
Sad to see such a loved frame be butchered like that.
What a bunch of morons are in charge.
Every year I wonder if it's going to get worse and sure enough they do something stupid.
> * The linux drivers for the NVME chipset in this laptop do not yet exist. No one is stopping them from being built.
> * Signature edition PC's must be locked into their highest performing mode in bios - this happens to be the NVME raid mode in the bios
> * Windows can't even see this because the chipset is so new, thus the extra driver needing to be loaded.
> * Lenovo have not yet built a linux version of this driver, but when they do you would also need to preinstall it or use a distro that includes it.
> * Again, no one is stopping you from building the driver yourself.
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/53ri0m/warning_micro...
So....it sucks for compatibility. But it doesn't preclude compatibility.
It feels strange to be defending Microsoft and Lenovo like this, but Microsoft most likely had nothing to do with this specific configuration. There is no version of Windows that comes with a driver for this RAID controller, just the same as there is no Linux driver yet.
While I might be tempted to believe that locking to RAID mode is a deliberate choice by Lenovo to take options away from users, the target here is not Linux. The target is Joe User who now can't (re-)install Windows on his machine. That's the freedom they're trying to take away.
Of course it doesn't help that Lenovo's marketing/support departments are utterly incompetent in communicating this, and switch to "guilty mode" by default.
By the way, actually locking out Linux would be an easy feat: just require a Microsoft-signed secure boot loader in UEFI. That's the real horror scenario, not this RAID driver nonsense.
http://www.zdnet.com/article/lenovo-reportedly-blocking-linu...
Maybe we'll get an official response from Lenovo.
UPDATE 9-21-16 7:25 PDT: Comment from Lenovo:
"To improve system performance, Lenovo is leading an industry trend of adopting RAID on the SSDs in certain product configurations. Lenovo does not intentionally block customers using other operating systems on its devices and is fully committed to providing Linux certifications and installation guidance on a wide range of products -https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/documents/pd031426. Unsupported models will rely on Linux operating system vendors releasing new kernel and drivers to support features such as RAID on SSD."
So no Microsoft involvement, just a lack of drivers on Linux's part. Although Lenovo could offer a method for owners to switch the SSD from RAID to AHCI mode to improve compatibility.]
How can they say that when this improvement effectively brings performance to zero for Linux users?
Also Microsoft, of late, has been getting some positive news regarding open source contribution. Looks like there are parts of it, which continue to remind us, why we hated it so much pre 2004, when it lost the computing dominance war with Google.
The last I heard, Dell still ships Ubuntu on some of their XPS models, and there are a few companies whose business model is based on officially supporting Linux on their own branded machines. System76[1] and ZaReason[2] immediately come to mind, but if you're seeking a fully open machine with no closed source drivers, look to Libiquity[3] for an older but FSF certified ThinkPad. Yes, it's a rebranded Lenovo so it may be a sour choice given the subject of this article, but it's a solid buy if you don't need today's CPU power. Ditto Minifree[4].
[1] https://system76.com/ [2] http://zareason.com/shop/home.php [3] https://shop.libiquity.com/product/taurinus-x200 [4] https://minifree.org/
1. it must work with an open source bootloader and 2. there must be some open source drivers for it.
But those are actually software needs, so how is it that hardware companies are allowed to dictate the outcome of the above two points?
How are they allowed under the law to create intentional incompatibilities?
Can other companies reverse engineer in order to write free, open source software?
Does anyone ever violate an NDA and win?
The benefits of inoperability are undeniable. These issues were ripe in the 1980's and are still very relevant today.
The discussion of the IBM PC BIOS in this thread is worth reading.
My newest laptop isn't that new; it's an IBM x60 (the famous one with the fully free BIOS available, although I haven't switched... yet) and it does run DOS perfectly well. When I replaced the HDD with an SSD all I had to do was image the partition over to the new one and everything just worked. I've run Linux and even OS X(!) on it.
But from the experiences I've seen of people with newer hardware, including articles like this and the other one about new CPUs and Windows 10, it appears newer PCs are becoming far more closed and proprietary, and that's definitely NOT a good thing.
In reality they're using a weird raid mode, no ones written a linux driver for yet.
The real problem is that somebody went out of their way to remove the ACPI setting in the BIOS, and apparently did this only for the Microsoft store "Signature" edition. Furthermore it doesn't seem to be a technical neccessity, since after re-flashing the BIOS the laptop works in ACPI mode with Linux and Windows.
Whether or not this was due to malice is besides the point for me personally. They should just say "oops, my bad" and set the flag allowing ACPI in the next BIOS revision.
Although, I saw this mentioned a while ago when I was first installing it: https://allanbogh.com/2015/12/23/installing-ubuntu-16-04-dai...
Why bother to pay for the M$ license fee while you're going to rub out the disk and install Linux at the first place? (just bought a laptop from System76 recently)
I think it's fair that a vendor support the operating system(s) they advertise. If Lenovo doesn't claim to support Linux (or any other OS), it's OK for them to do whatever they want to prevent users from installing a different operating system. I'd even go so far as saying that a different OS should void the warranty. There are programs out their that will brick the BIOS if ran incorrectly.
I know this is controversial, but it's a functional business model of a large company that needs to provide support. With that said, nobody should ever buy Lenovo after their SuperFish ordeal. They should've been sued out of business: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfish#Lenovo_security_inci...
Their supposed FOSS turn is an obvious trap. Trust them at your own peril.
-Evidence?
-It's M$ bruh.
The issue doesn't affect Thinkpad line but sure does help people to make a buying decision between a MBP and a Thinkpad.
Linux always lags in new hardware support. Other than the appallingly bad way Lenovo handled the questions on their site, is this news?
Has the community perception of Lenovo's build quality changed, or did I just get the wrong idea in the first place?
I'm personally not a fan and won't buy anything locked up in such a way, but I'm pretty sure that the security team is. Regardless, we see this all the time in other devices - tablets, phones, routers, gaming consoles, etc. It's only logical that MS would want to pursue lock-in in their subsidized environments as well.
I'd be worried at that point.
1. http://ec.europa.eu/competition/consumers/web_browsers_choic...
Since Microsoft got into trouble with the EU before, they should know that this could potentially cause another investigation. Hands down, a big company is actively trying to make devices unusable with anything but their software. This is not in the interest of consumers, therefore probably illegal in some regions.
I'm not paying thousands of dollars to get something that needs to be "cracked" to work the way I want.
Lenovo will not see a single dollar of mine, ever.
No, the fact that people would believe some conspiracy with the specific intent of locking Linux is the case is shocking.
If anything they're falling upwards.
Freedom is a crime \o/
Computing is fun again
What is their motive here? The Windows vs. Linux battle is long settled, and Windows is not under thread from Linux. Why would they intentionally block Linux on one vendors laptops, gaining basically no profit/market share, and risking lawsuits and online outrage?
Hanlon's razor applies; I assume this is a case of incompetence.
What makes you think that?
As far as I can tell there is still a reasonable chance that Linux and Linux-typical software like LibreOffice will gain more market share at the cost of Microsoft products. Especially with preinstalled and -configured notebooks working with Linux.
Just as a FWIW, here is another option:
As per my opinion on this, I'd rather see people not have knee-jerk reactions to Lenovo screwing up Linux support and people rushing for "alternatives", but rather make a concerted effort to support companies focused on Linux-supported hardware (for the long-term).
Also, this story combined with the HP printer story really makes you wonder why hardware manufacturers are going backwards towards locked-systems when their software divisions "embrace the world of open source". Hardware really is the final frontier for open-source.
You can install crouton to get a regular Linux environment.
There are limitations, of course. Especially if you want a lot of processing power. The primary places I use my Chromebook are where I have Internet connectivity, so I decided not to carry around all the computer power I need on a regular basis.
My first laptop was a Dell Latitude E6320. Inconspicuous. Magnesium and brushed aluminum. You wouldn't know until you touched it. SIM card slot where the battery fits, so 3G connectivity. Good plastics (firm and not wobbly, short travel distance up and down, gives it a "critically damped oscillation" feel). And, 180° opening. The keyboard and screen can be on the same plane. You can do many things with that and it's only when you try to work with a non 180° that you notice how great that feature is.
Example: Open it at slightly less than 180° on my lap, rotate it 90° counterclockwise, then rotate the PDF 90° clockwise. Now I have a sort of book with an 'A4'ish page on my left (the screen) and write on the notepad that's sitting on the keyboard. If I invert the colors on the PDF (page in black, text in white), it can be really nice.
>but the rootkit is only a problem on Windows
>but it's still a great machine for Linux
I hope the people who told me that are now reading this.
You know Keizen? From Japan? The continuous improvement of products..
Chinese have something similar. Geizen. ("to be stingy").
Geizen, the continuous deterioration of product quality to increase profits. Same a millimeter in the thickness of the case. Use cheaper steal, make the cables shorter. The thing needs 6 screws? It will hold fine with 5. Will even hold with only 4. Maybe 3?
And if Microsoft gives a buck to lock the consumer in, why bother telling him? All part of Geizen.
I am sure it can -- and one wonders why Microsoft bothered to port it -- but why go through the hassle?
The point is that users can buy small form factor computers and these computers do not run Windows.
They are called development boards.
Perhaps these boards are the future of "general purpose computing".
And perhaps they can be paired these with sexy enclosures that are made by company run by designers that does not sell electronics - they only sell enclosures.
And they look better than Apple's.
Then I woke up. It was just a dream.
win10antitrust.us is available on namecheap.com for $0.88.
Microsoft has _repeatedly_ lost anti-trust lawsuits in the past 16 years for this exact sort of behavior. How is it that they have not learned their lesson?
Windows 10 is failing, and now they've taken actions which will surely incur billions of dollars in fines. I would not be at all surprised if the ruling judge in the inevitable lawsuit punishes them harshly for not learning their lesson the first several times.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_litigation
Whatever executives are responsible for this should be drawn and quartered by the investors.
And hardly anyone is talking about Lenovo's liability. They are just as guilty as Microsoft and they're a much smaller company, will this destroy them?
Lack of effective penalties, clearly.