I have to wonder if this will end up spilling over into the ThinkPad line...
I'd be worried at that point.
Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop
381–390 of 494 posts
Re: Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop
#382Earlier quoted context omitted.
More likely, it's a conspiracy against Win7/Win8 users, which hurts Linux users as collateral damage. What likely happened was the ms/lenovo deal was "And Lenovo will make sure win7 and win8 are not supported on laptop", which lenovo solved by switching the hard drive to a mode not even win10 supports, locking it that way (that's the evil part), and putting drivers for it on the lenovo install media, which are win10…
Except windows 10s drivers are compatible with windows 8 and 7, since the driver model haven't changed since then. So using that install media you can extract the drivers and install older windows versions anyway. So it's a pretty crappy conspiracy :)
Not at all. To be effective, it doesn't need to stop a very determined user (as evidence, someone reflashed the bios so they could install Linux).
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).
Re: Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop
#383Earlier quoted context omitted.
More likely, it's a conspiracy against Win7/Win8 users, which hurts Linux users as collateral damage. What likely happened was the ms/lenovo deal was "And Lenovo will make sure win7 and win8 are not supported on laptop", which lenovo solved by switching the hard drive to a mode not even win10 supports, locking it that way (that's the evil part), and putting drivers for it on the lenovo install media, which are win10…
The problem with this conspiracy is that you can't install Windows 10 on the machine either ...
From retail/downloaded Win10. Buy you CAN from Lenovo images, which are provided to you by Lenovo.
Re: Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop
#384It's things lIke this that destroy any enthusiasm over Microsoft doing things like bring Bash to Windows. Clearly, nothing has changed in Microsoft's business practices, and we can't let PR like "Microsoft loves Linux" fool us. Baller might as well still be CEO.
Re: Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop
#385Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just a nitpick - Spectrum was pretty open (at least if we are talking about 48/128). My father bought us Spectrum specifically because it was more open than alternatives (Atari or Commodore), and he later bought the PC for the same reason (and I would never buy a Mac for the same reason). Unlike its competitors, Spectrum had standard phone jack connectors for sound and magnetic tape recorder (so you could use any rec…
Not if we are talking about installing alternative OS into it.
There wasn't an OS to talk about. The 16kB ROM contained a BASIC interpreter, which was ignored by most applications you would load from the tape. If you wanted to talk to the hardware (joystick, printer), you did the I/O yourself.
Re: Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop
#386Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not if we are talking about installing alternative OS into it.
Actually, that was pretty doable too. Later, my father bought D40, which was a 5.25 inch disk unit produced by Czech company. The D40 had its own 16kB ROM which got mapped instead of the standard Spectrum ROM when NMI was invoked (the D40 ROM contained code to handle the disks). So it was totally possible for an external device to remap original ROM with something else, even RAM.
Regarding the RAM remapping: There was Didaktik Gama (made by the same company, that made D40), that had 80kB RAM. It was done by switching the 32768-65535 address range between two banks.
Re: Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop
#387This was so predictable. And of course, the FSF called it: https://www.fsf.org/campaigns/secure-boot-vs-restricted-boot
It's so predictable that people would run with conspiracy theories that make no sense and link to things that are completely unrelated. The "issue" that came up today in this article has absolutely nothing to do with SecureBoot.
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Re: Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop
#388I 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.
Ditto. But I think we have fallen on hard times when Dell becomes the go-to.
Re: Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop
#389In a world where the most important computer networks and a substantial number of devices connecting to them run on free, open source software, the user's hardware needs are simple:
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.
Re: Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop
#390Get a Developer Edition XPS 13 from Dell instead, comes with Linux pre-installed. I have one and they are awesome, if manufacturers support Linux they get my $.
I bought a Lenovo X1 Carbon (most recent gen) and really regret it for a great many reasons. Wish I had gone for the XPS. Actually what swayed me was the very slightly larger screen.
I've got a 3443CTO X1 Carbon from a few years back. Decent build quality, but low res screen and only 4GB of RAM (was all that I could get when I bought it).
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.