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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

#421

Post by wnoise »

carapace wrote: post #406
RandomOpinion wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

"Universal" machine. 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.

Worse, it's like trying to control where you can drive it.

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

#422

Post by pjmlp »

vetinari wrote: post #385
pjmlp wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The 16kB ROM BASIC interpreter was the OS!

And you surely could not overwrite it.

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

#423

Post by catena »

sergiosgc wrote: post #331
sevensor wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

Honest question: what is the alternative? Apple is not. Dell has finicky hardware. HP has crappy laptops. Asus is hit and miss. When my x1 dies, I think I'll just continue and get the then current generation x1...

I've been happy for a few years with my 17" System76 laptop. Came with Ubuntu preinstalled, and has worked fine through two major OS version upgrades. Really fast boot with the OS on an SSD drive.

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

#424

Post by wonkaWonka »

hsitz wrote: post #420
Koshkin wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> fora Off-topic, but for future reference: fora = forums, viri = viruses, indices = indexes, formulae = formulas, etc.

Meaning is the same for 'fora' and 'forums', but both are fine and 'forums' is in fact more commonly used: http://grammarist.com/usage/fora-forums/ 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's trolling. It's a useless tangential argument about something that does not affect intended conveyance.

He may be forum sliding, creating crufty noise, to dilute communication.

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

#425

Post by [deleted] »

hsitz wrote: post #420
Koshkin wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> fora Off-topic, but for future reference: fora = forums, viri = viruses, indices = indexes, formulae = formulas, etc.

Meaning is the same for 'fora' and 'forums', but both are fine and 'forums' is in fact more commonly used: http://grammarist.com/usage/fora-forums/ 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.

[deleted]

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

#426

Post by [deleted] »

hsitz wrote: post #420
Koshkin wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> fora Off-topic, but for future reference: fora = forums, viri = viruses, indices = indexes, formulae = formulas, etc.

Meaning is the same for 'fora' and 'forums', but both are fine and 'forums' is in fact more commonly used: http://grammarist.com/usage/fora-forums/ 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.

[deleted]

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

#427

Post by mjg59 »

This is horribly misleading - http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/44694.html has some more details. But the short version is that Lenovo are force-enabling a feature that ensures they get better power management, and which is unsupported under Linux because Intel have never submitted code. If Intel ever do so (or if someone else writes it), Linux will just work.

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

#428

Post by coldtea »

marcosdumay wrote: post #336
coldtea wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, add a distro's keys (to the firmware) or use a distro signed with the default (MS) key. 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...

Or get to learn something about key management. 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.

>Or get to learn something about key management. A centralized key is not secure. A secure key is not centralized.

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.

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

#429

Post by fl0wenol »

criddell wrote: post #417
carapace wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Universal" machine. 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.

Does that include your cable company DVR, your PS4, your doorbell, your wifi-enabled refrigerator, your thermostat, and the 50 other devices in your home that contain (or are) computers?

Personal computers are perceived as the last vestige of this sort of freedom in a consumer product, hence the outrage.

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.)

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

#430

Post by CaptSpify »

SamBam wrote: post #413
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…

> This really makes me angry and makes me want to boycott their products. After SuperFish, Omniture, and whatever their third malware scandal was, you still need a reason not to buy Lenovo?

The problem I have is: What's the alternative? I've yet to see a decent linux-capable computer. I'm hoping someone can point me to one
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