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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

#441

Post by branchly2 »

CaptSpify wrote: post #430
SamBam wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

I get all my systems from [ThinkPenguin](https://www.thinkpenguin.com/), and have been very happy with them. Those folks are dedicated to free software.

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

#442

Post by vegabook »

orbitingpluto wrote: post #388
vegabook wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I have to assume you're referencing Apple, because otherwise, apart from maybe Lenovo, for a good quality decent price machine with at least a semblance of design attention, Dell has been pretty good for something like 8-10 years now (HP: are you listening?). Dell also has a long history of access to and enthusiasm for cutting edge components.

If however what you're lamenting is the idea that we have to look somewhere other than Apple these days, then I have to agree with you. Their lineup is truly forgettable in the above-starbucks market, tragic considering the history of the macbook. Maybe just maybe that'll change in October, but then we'll still have to deal with the iOSification of OSX to the detriment of developers. Also I'm a big mech keyboard fan and the rumoured oled bar function key replacement idea does NOT work for me unless they open source it (haha).

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

#443

Post by CaptSpify »

rch wrote: post #440
CaptSpify wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Someone pointed me to the Dell XPS 15 yesterday (i7, 32GB, 1TB SSD, 4K touch screen). Dell's business practices were a big contributor to the current situation, but I'm getting close to overlooking that.

I've had a few people I know/trust use those and they were far from happy with them. A lot of video/battery/driver issues unfortunately

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

#444

Post by WallowC_33 »

programmer_man wrote: post #419
zx2c4 wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Lenovo made a computer that exposes hardware to the OS for which Linux does not yet have drivers. They could have exposed a more standard interface, but they didn't. I guess this is their fault, okay. But again, what's the big deal? What's next? You'll be…

Yes, Thinkpads have traditionally had the best linux hardware support of all laptops, ever since there were x86 laptops (the easiest installs were thinkpads, and toshiba, early on). Now, this piece of hardware removes support for the standard way to access the hard drive. Why did they do that? Hardware engineer couldn't fix a glitch in a new chipset in time to fix the issue in time to ship? Exceedingly unlikely. You…

Interestingly, despite Thinkpads being the best at running Linux over the years, they never officially supported it. At some point they began cracking down on it.

At last job, we had to wipe machines back to the version of Windows that came with them in order to get Lenovo to honor the NBD support we paid for, even when it was obviously not a software glitch (displays dying or DVD drives not reading discs in any OS). We kept a couple spare hard drives around with vanilla Windows installs for this reason.

We were pretty excited when Dell started shipping their Developer models. Told Lenovo to pound sand when it came time to refresh.

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

#445

Post by tracker1 »

nowprovision wrote: post #395
deviate_X wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The version of linux he used does not have the right drivers! simple.

You're missing the point. The mode of operation is defined in the BIOS, and these parts have been deliberately disabled. Whilst in theory it's true that Debian could potentially release a version in the future at present due to delibrate crippling in the BIOS (changed firmware to disable features) one can not even workaround this. Acer used to do something somewhat similar on some Aspire models (disabling option to e…

Disabling the vx toggle in the bios bit me a couple times... it's just weird that a vendor would do that in the first place. Fortunately, at home I've always built my own, but laptops are so much more limited in terms of freedom.

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

#446

Post by CaptSpify »

tom_b wrote: post #431
CaptSpify wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I run Debian and XMonad on a Macbook Pro with 16GB of memory. Nice machine. I guess it would still dual boot to OSX, but I haven't tried for more than a year.

I do admit this is a fairly viable system, but I don't want to pay a ton of money, nor do I want to support apple.

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

#447

Post by CaptSpify »

branchly2 wrote: post #441
CaptSpify wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I get all my systems from [ThinkPenguin]( https://www.thinkpenguin.com/ ), and have been very happy with them. Those folks are dedicated to free software.

Interesting. I don't think I've heard of them, thanks!

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

#449

Post by tracker1 »

And the first distro to release an update that supports this hardware configuration wins.. and imho, that would be awesome... the behavior itself by Lenovo is deplorable, and I will probably not be buying from them ever again... Haven't purchased a Sony labelled product in well over a decade now.. Lenovo is on that list too after the spyware issue a couple years ago.

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

#450

Post by digi_owl »

krylon wrote: post #435
vanderZwan wrote: post #288

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…

That talk is so awesome. I still watch it about once a year, just because it is so much fun to listen to. It is also slightly depressing in how right he is - back then I thought the guy was sounding kind of paranoid, but with every passing year and every new wave of hype (the cloud(TM), IoT, "Industrie 4.0", ...), and with every case of stuff like Superfish, I think of that talk and cannot help thinking that he was r…

Doctorow is pretty much a more presentable RMS on this subject...
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