Looks like ZDNet picked up the story:
http://www.zdnet.com/article/lenovo-reportedly-blocking-linu...
Maybe we'll get an official response from Lenovo.
Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop
361–370 of 494 posts
Re: Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop
#362The community's reaction seems absurd to me. 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 w…
It seems absurd because you complete glossed over the most important part: " and for whatever reason, there's no working option for exposing a more standard AHCI interface instead."
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.
Re: Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop
#363Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
No company runs its own support forum ... as far as I'm aware Stack Overflow is ad supported right? ;)
This. Also companies that delete embarrassing threads are shitty companies, I wouldn't buy anything there. Support forums are everywhere, from Reddit to SO anyway
Re: Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop
#364> Lenovo for example confirmed that they singed an agreement with Microsoft for this. 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.
And they will lose. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/09/sony-wins-pre-ins...
No, because:
> 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.
Re: Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop
#365I've been boycotting Lenovo for years. Their build quality is low quality compared to other vendors (Asus, Dell, MSI) and then there's stuff like this.
In a spurt of dissatisfaction with Apple, I tried a few years ago to buy a PC, and bought a Lenovo precisely because I'd heard such good things about their build quality. My monitor had a prominent dead pixel and my spacebar didn't work, so my impression wasn't positive, but I thought that it was just bad luck.
Has the community perception of Lenovo's build quality changed, or did I just get the wrong idea in the first place?
Re: Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop
#366This 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.
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Re: Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop
#367The 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…
>locking existing users out of Linux 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 th…
What gives Linux users the right to expect that Linux will run on any given PC / laptop?
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.
Re: Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop
#368Looks like ZDNet picked up the story: http://www.zdnet.com/article/lenovo-reportedly-blocking-linu... Maybe we'll get an official response from Lenovo.
The ZDNet article above got an update, an offical response from Lenovo. I copied it from there:
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.]
Re: Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop
#369Earlier quoted context omitted.
The version of linux he used does not have the right drivers! simple.
There seems to be a lot of hurt and over-excitement about this! 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)_/¯
Microsoft: "You can't change the operating system on the computer you bought. But we can." (ref Win 10 forced installs)
Re: Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop
#370Looks like ZDNet picked up the story: http://www.zdnet.com/article/lenovo-reportedly-blocking-linu... Maybe we'll get an official response from Lenovo.
The ZDNet article above got an update, an offical response from Lenovo. I copied it from there: 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 certification…
>To improve system performance
How can they say that when this improvement effectively brings performance to zero for Linux users?