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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

#311
post #100
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TVs, mobile phones and consoles didn't start their journeys are portable and free to modify devices as PCs did.

Neither did home computers (Personal Computers), only the IBM PC clones did thanks to Compaq and their reverse engineering process not being invalidated in court.

I see the confusion now, by free to modify I meant you can go and replace your operating system, bootloader or hardware. Do you need more RAM, just get some and put it into your MOBO, third screen? Just get it and plug-in. Recently I replcated screen in my laptop to a matt one, keyboard one with harder keys and it all works. When I want to change screen in my phone, I can't only one certain model will work as expected, some models might fix, but they won't support the same resolution, can't upgrade camera or RAM there, so basically, it's not my hardware, I have to use what manufacturer pre-selected for me.

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

#312

I have been a long time ThinkPad user and recently purchased my latest ThinkPad T460p. Sadly it has some issues, the latest NVidia drivers don't work on the device but I'm forced to use the 1 year old driver that Lenovo provides in their packages. Figuring this out took my several days of trouble shooting (only dx9 was affected). Also the system fan is constantly running. I went to their support site and the online s…

Honestly Dell does Ubuntu pre-installed and therefore its XPS and Precision models never give this kind of bullshit uphill, even if you don't buy the Ubuntu version. It's now my go-to vendor, simply because I consider any vendor which does not do full testing on Linux, and sells any hardware that doesn't fully support it, as suspect and not worth bothering with. I'm sad to see that Lenovo is now in that camp.

One of my co-workers bought a Linux laptop from Dell, and while the Linux capabilities worked, he spent several weeks working with their support to get the laptop re-imaged. The first time they returned it it had no system image. Apparently their service depot doesn't have system images for their version of Linux. The support rep had to actually intercept the laptop on the second trip from the depot to reinstall Linux.

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

#313

I have been a long time ThinkPad user and recently purchased my latest ThinkPad T460p. Sadly it has some issues, the latest NVidia drivers don't work on the device but I'm forced to use the 1 year old driver that Lenovo provides in their packages. Figuring this out took my several days of trouble shooting (only dx9 was affected). Also the system fan is constantly running. I went to their support site and the online s…

Agreed, and I'm a long-time ThinkPad advocate with a stack of older models in my closet going back to the R31. I've always thought they had superior keyboards and pointing devices, and every one of my old ThinkPads runs Arch beautifully. (Granted, I didn't bother installing X on the R31.) Given the opportunity to pick out a new laptop for work last week, I passed them by, and that was before I was aware of this news. They've done too many questionable things lately, and lost my trust.

Lenovo has lost my business. The ThinkPad is not for Linux any more.

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

#314

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. I…

If your disk is encrypted, no one's getting in there. The most they could do is wipe your machine clean and use it as their own, and I think that's still possible with this model of laptop.

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

#315
post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the IBM PC followed a generation of 8-bit CP/M microcomputers that were pretty much open.... though they were mainly used by businesses rather than home users.

Hence why I specifically mentioned home computers.

Initially, the IBM PC wasn't really a home computer either...

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

#316

This looks like a timely moment to bring up Cory Doctorow's The coming war on general computation talk: > 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…

> This looks like a timely moment to bring up Cory Doctorow's The coming war on general computation talk:

One should also watch the (IMHO unfairly) less well-known sequel Fighting Back in the War on General Purpose Computers

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pT6itfUUsoQ

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

#317
post #9

On some recent Lenovo laptops. 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…

Here's the bug: https://github.com/rhinstaller/shim/issues/55

And PR: https://github.com/rhinstaller/shim/pull/60

Hopefully $DISTRO will patch it soon so you can enroll keys. : )

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

#318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're quoting Hanlon's Razor.. But this could also be Hanlon's Dodge( https://cluelesscreationcorporation.quora.com/When-the-burea... )... I'm not saying it is, but it could be.

Never knew this principle had a name. Will have to try to remember it. Of course for us plebeians, it is oft heard "ignorance is no excuse".

The quote is attributed to Napoleon, who surely saw his fair share of incompetent generals. It should really be called Napoleons Razor to fall in line with Occam.

Who is this Hanlon guy anyway.

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

#319

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…

Missed the HP printer story. Mind linking?

This one has most comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12524031
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