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Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop

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Re: Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop

#291

Post by qb45 »

DanBC wrote: post #247
paulintrognon wrote: post #210

The worst part is the reaction from Lenovo in my opinion. They just locked the thread reporting the issue on their forum, not saying anything about the problem itself but instead threatened the community to turn the pre-approval option on. This really makes me angry and makes me want to boycott their products. I really hope this issue will spread so that Lenovo learn that they made a bad move on this one. It also mad…

> not saying anything about the problem That's incorrect. Someone from Lenovo had already posted in the thread saying that it had been escalated.

> That's incorrect. Someone from Lenovo had already posted in the thread saying that it had been escalated.

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.

Re: Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop

#292

Post by wolfgke »

zyrthofar wrote: post #274
phantom_oracle wrote: post #213

I see lots of folks referencing the Dell XPS laptops. Just as a FWIW, here is another option: https://system76.com/ 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…

I've heard some good and bad reviews about system76 and zareason. I'm currently considering the Librem 13 on https://puri.sm/ for when they come out in october.

Why doesn't puri.sm even include an Ethernet port in their premium product Librem 15 and in Librem 11 (though they do in Librem 13); cf. https://puri.sm/store/. There are very good reasons to use ethernet and strongly avoid use of WiFi if you are serious about privacy. For example consider slides 69-76 of http://de.slideshare.net/grugq/opsec-for-hackers, where the FBI could see when there was data sent/received by simply looking at when there was activity in the suspect's private WLAN (something that is not possible in this form for ethernet) and decorrelate it to his TOR activity.

Re: Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop

#293

Post by vlehto »

coldtea wrote: post #277
vlehto wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly alcometer locks on cars and speed limiters are very rare. Except for minorities, like truck or taxi drivers. Small groups of voters, so politicians can do what they wish with them. Seems like it's "okay" when you can get away with it. But not okay when large group of people get some slight inconvenience.

> Interestingly alcometer locks on cars and speed limiters are very rare. If the technology gets convenient and cheap enough, they might not be.

Car speed limiter is completely trivial, cheap and potentially life saving.

"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).

Re: Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop

#294

Post by DanBC »

makaronin wrote: post #172
xg15 wrote: post #47

The other HN thread suggests this not actually a dark conspiracy by Microsoft but simply a case of missing linux drivers for the storage devices. 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 Linu…

If you read the original reddit thread, you would understand that this is not just a drivers issue. Lenovo intentionally programmed their BIOS so that it reverts any changes to RAID mode making it impossible to install Linux.

Also making it impossible to install Windows 10 downloaded directly from MS.

Re: Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop

#295

Post by Steeeve »

This kind of thing is seen as a positive in the infosec space, is it not? Meaning that an end user can't come along and boot linux (or anything else) via USB and bypass system security controls.

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.

Re: Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop

#296

Post by scholia »

Normal_gaussian wrote: post #39
Yaggo wrote: post #13

Just out of curiosity, what's the rationale for MS & Lenovo to do this, why to risk PR? The number of people wanting to install Linux is marginal and they are already "on the wrong side".

It's certainly not the year of the Linux desktop, but it's not far off. 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.

This failure to innovate presumably includes touch screens, Windows Hello biometric sign-in, running sandboxed apps from a Windows Store, integrated Cortana AI, Notification Center, cloud integration via OneDrive, Continuum mode, Device Guard, Universal apps that work across PCs, tablets, phones and the Xbox One, Xbox app for streaming live games to a PC or Tablet, touch-optimized Office apps on Windows, iOS and Android, and half a dozen other things.

Re: Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop

#297

Post by DanBC »

paulintrognon wrote: post #270
DanBC wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> not saying anything about the problem That's incorrect. Someone from Lenovo had already posted in the thread saying that it had been escalated.

I was talking about the last post, sorry if that wasn't clear. My point was, if other people have the same problem and find the thread, they will not read 19 pages and rather go to the last one to see where's the issue at. And there they will find nothing that answers their question. Lenovo staff could have at least have said "it is a known issue" / "it is a driver issue" / "We have an agreement with Microsoft"... Wh…

The last post links to the post from a mod saying the issue has 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.

Re: Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop

#299

Post by makaronin »

kbart wrote: post #212
supergirl wrote: post #171

A "product expert" forum support guy reveals a SECRET AGREEMENT between Microsoft and Lenovo. Come on.

I don't see word "secret" anywhere in his answer. EDIT: http://imgur.com/a/niewu

I named it secret because these laptops have been sold for months and no one was aware of this agreement with MS until today.

Re: Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop

#300

Post by [deleted] »

cesarb wrote: post #220
sangnoir wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that would help - libvirt also has kernel modules

The kvm kernel modules come with the Fedora kernel, and thus are already signed by Fedora's key. It's virtualbox which for some reason won't upstream their kernel modules, so they have to be compiled and installed by its users.

[deleted]
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