Microsoft aren't forcing Lenovo to block free operating systems • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft aren't forcing Lenovo to block free operating systems

#211

Post by rburhum » Thu, Sep 22, 2016, 5:04 AM UTC

captainmuon wrote: post #97

rburhum wrote: post #67

What is crazy to me is that Lenovo is usually the brand that people recommend for Linux laptops. They are shooting themselves in the foot here. They may think that the number of people on Linux is too small, but I bet it is bigger than they think. It is just that there is no easy way to accurately census the amount of Linux users on their HW.

I used to recommend Lenovo (and before that, IBM) unconditionally for both Windows and Linux use. We called them the "Volvo of computers" because of their longevity, their performance, and their repairability. Now I'm writing this on a Yoga Pro 2, which is nice in principle, but it's slowly starting to get wobbly, screws are falling out, the color is peeling off the keys, and I can't use Linux because the color yello…

oh wow. That sounds horrible. I am sorry man!

Re: Microsoft aren't forcing Lenovo to block free operating systems

#212

Post by dang » Thu, Sep 22, 2016, 5:04 AM UTC

johansch wrote: post #137

It's so sad to see this. (This entire thread, and its comments are down-voted.) Let me try again. New Microsoft is awesome! Old Microsoft never happened. Double plus good!

Please don't post unsubstantive comments. Also, please don't post comments complaining about downvotes; that's explicitly against the site guidelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).

People often feel that their pro/anti MS views are being suppressed by the anti/pro members of the community, but really it's just that the community is divided. Accusations of abuse without evidence aren't allowed here, and someone merely holding an opposing view isn't evidence.

We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12551876 and marked it off-topic.

Re: Microsoft aren't forcing Lenovo to block free operating systems

#213

Post by dang » Thu, Sep 22, 2016, 5:11 AM UTC

farcical_tinpot wrote: post #129

I wondered when Matthew Garrett would pipe up and deepthroat Microsoft again. He duly obliges. When I first heard this I thought this was what I always thought would eventually happen with Secure Boot, but we haven't quite arrived at that point yet. Give it time when we eventually end up with critical mass. What seems to be happening is similar to Kaby Lake in reverse. You restrict hardware and drivers needed to no o…

> I wondered when Matthew Garrett would pipe up and deepthroat Microsoft again. He duly obliges.

Personal attacks (and that's an ugly one) are not allowed on HN. Nor is name-calling ("so stupid it isn't even funny, but Matthew likes defending stupid").

We ban accounts that do this, so please don't. You can easily make your point civilly and we'll all be better for it.

Re: Microsoft aren't forcing Lenovo to block free operating systems

#214

Post by dang » Thu, Sep 22, 2016, 5:24 AM UTC

NetStrikeForce wrote: post #195

Hydraulix989 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It's not harder: It degrades the overall experience while using the laptop (battery, temperature, performance)." Except these are baseless claims that haven't been supported by any data yet; in fact, one user that posted on the Lenovo Community forums compared the "performance" of single-drive RAID (oxymoron) vs. AHCI for NVMe SSDs, and it's more or less the same. "I mean flashing a non-supported BIOS :)" Right, so…

You're not getting trolled. No one is against you, you just don't understand business and the associated costs of things that might look little to you. On the technical side you're right, we agree. On the business side things do not work like that. For the last time: This was a terrible decision, but the best course of action for Lenovo might not be as simple as it looks for a technical standpoint. And please, keep i…

> And please, keep it civil. There's no need to call me troll just because you don't understand business.

I agree that that wasn't civil, but there's nothing civil about this side-swipe either. Please don't do that.

Re: Microsoft aren't forcing Lenovo to block free operating systems

#215

Post by PieterH » Thu, Sep 22, 2016, 6:08 AM UTC

tw04 wrote: post #201

PieterH wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. I'm happy to install Linux from a USB stick. I'm not happy reflashing a BIOS. Have installed many, many laptops with Linux (ironically, my all time favorites are older Lenovos like the X220). I've not once flashed a BIOS. Not being able to change the OS on a laptop severely reduces its aftermarket value too. My laptop originally ran Windows. I bought it second hand to run Linux on.

Flashing a BIOS takes about 1/10th the time and effort of installing Linux. Unless you're under the age of about 25 I'm not sure how you've never once flashed a BIOS unless you aren't in tech. Pretty much every new server from Dell/HP/Cisco/IBM/name your vendor requires a BIOS flash at least once in it's lifetime. Usually at the time of acquisition for HBA compatibility.

I've been in tech for 35 years and never flashed a pc bios. My MP3 player, sure. You think tech means installing servers?

Re: Microsoft aren't forcing Lenovo to block free operating systems

#216

Post by Whitestrake » Thu, Sep 22, 2016, 6:14 AM UTC

seba_dos1 wrote: post #163

mjg59 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They blocked the enabling of a setting which allows Linux to see the hard disk. Or, alternatively, they removed a firmware setting that makes their hardware work less well and didn't think about Linux at all.

Removed the option from BIOS menu? Okay, stupid and annoying, but well, there's always EFI shell where you can edit variables by yourself... Writing a piece of code that resets that one particular variable on each boot? Sorry, but that's just nasty. There is no reason to do that if the goal is just to provide best experience on supported OS. Although I agree that it's unlikely this was targetted specifically against…

> There is no reason to do that if the goal is just to provide best experience on supported OS.

I don't believe it's accurate to say there's "no real reason", it seems like enforcing this behaviour is very much aligned with the goal you've posited.

This is under the assumption that this was indeed done for the purpose of ensuring Intel specific drivers are used for power management purposes.

Re: Microsoft aren't forcing Lenovo to block free operating systems

#217

Post by ramblenode » Thu, Sep 22, 2016, 6:44 AM UTC

NetStrikeForce wrote: post #200

hlandau wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why is it reasonable? Does it bring more money to Lenovo shareholders? Dear god, am I supposed to care about the shareholders now? People don't buy products out of empathy for shareholders. I don't consider "higher support costs" to be a valid pretext for trying to obstruct me from configuring my property as I please. The idea that people may cluelessly mess around in the BIOS and render the machine unbootable is no…

> Dear god, am I supposed to care about the shareholders now? People don't buy products out of empathy for shareholders. No. People buy Lenovo because many reasons, but not because of empathy... or because their friendliness to Linux. And, by the way, you still don't get it. You're not the one to decide on behalf of Lenovo what's reasonable for them to do, unless you're their CEO. You can say this or that is reasonab…

> People buy Lenovo because many reasons, but not because of empathy... or because their friendliness to Linux.

Lenovo's Linux compatibility has been a selling point for Linux users from what I've gathered talking to people and reading forums (see for example [0]). It was one of the reasons I bought a Lenovo.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11503951

Re: Microsoft aren't forcing Lenovo to block free operating systems

#218

Post by __jal » Thu, Sep 22, 2016, 7:52 AM UTC

raesene9 wrote: post #141

__jal wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or Lenovo and MS have a vast conspiracy to use disk drivers to block linux install.. That's not a vast conspiracy. That would be a pretty quotidian conspiracy. In fact, it would look a lot like the "Winmodems[1]" that were a thing before (and maybe around?) the turn of the century. Those existed because they made machines marginally cheaper by emulating the modem in software. Which only worked on Windows and caused…

Sure I remember the old winmodem days well, but that was a well known (and very frustrating) problem, which was a stated position of the companies in question. the customer support bit and wanting to move to the next call is based on my own experience of working in support many years ago, there was a strong temptation to tell the user something to get onto the next call as that was usually your performance metric....

> but that was a well known (and very frustrating) problem, which was a stated position of the companies in question.

And I'm pretty sure it became well known due to discussions just like this, over time. There was a ton of confusion about it at the time; I'm really not in the mood to attempt to search for 20 year old nerd-grousing, but I remember it from various Linux lists at the time.

And it wouldn't surprise me a bit if some CSR at Best Buy gave bad information about Winmodems, and people like me took the bad information at face value and then got in a discussion about it in some forum...

And the cycle of life is complete.

Re: Microsoft aren't forcing Lenovo to block free operating systems

#219

Post by simbalion » Thu, Sep 22, 2016, 7:57 AM UTC

huhtenberg wrote: post #75

sctb wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No idea who are the dolts who have downvoted you into light gray... > WTH is wrong with you, people, really. Please comment civilly and substantively or not at all. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

How was it now civil or substantive? Edit - oh, you must be referring to "dolts". Please consider it a succinct version of my opinion of trigger-happy people who downvote perfectly good comments that they disagree with. The downvote option is still not meant for expressing disagreement on HN, is it not?

I called out someone for playing devil's advocate and the moderator retaliated by destroy the whole thread. I think you're wasting your time by trying to reason with it.

Re: Microsoft aren't forcing Lenovo to block free operating systems

#220

Post by xyzzy123 » Thu, Sep 22, 2016, 9:07 AM UTC

FullMtlAlcoholc wrote: post #92

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or the uncritical tech press or the rubes on reddit, etc. Its obvious to me that we're living in a time where rumors, falsehoods, and purposeful misdirection are easily monetized and that's what our tech press has degenerated into. Critical voices just get downvoted away for being "shills" or somesuch. We live in a time where likes and upvotes control what we see and informed criticism being censored away by downvote…

As far as forums go, I find that HackerNews has one of the most civil and thought provoking discussions on the internet. This is most likely due to responsible moderation where differences of opinion are not only accepted, but respected. In fact, this forum practically moderates itself as I've seen many times a post gets downvoted into oblivion for making personal attacks or ad-hominem arguments. Perhaps this has to…

The sane perspective on the db drop experience that you described is that you were simply the innocent victim of a major organizational failure.

Companies with a solid engineering culture will look at the process and fix it without blaming an individual - regardless of if the data are recoverable or not.