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MoBo Manufacturer Foxconn Refuses To Support Linux
Noodlenose notes a thread up on the Ubuntu forums, where a user is questioning the practices of hardware manufacturer Foxconn. The user describes how his new Foxconn motherboard caused his Linux install to freeze and fire off weird kernel errors. He disassembles the BIOS and concludes that a faulty DSDT table is responsible for the errors. Even though the user makes Foxconn aware of the problem, they refuse to correct it, as 'it doesn't support Linux' and is only 'Microsoft certified.' The user speculates darkly on Foxconn's motives. Read the forum, read the code, and come to your own conclusions. "I disassembled my BIOS to have a look around, and while I won't post the results here, I'll tell you what I did find. They have several different tables, a group for Windows XP and Vista, a group for 2000, a group for NT, Me, 95, 98, etc. that just errors out, and one for LINUX. The one for Linux points to a badly written table that does not correspond to the board's ACPI implementation.' The worst part is Foxconn's insistence that the product is ACPI compliant because their tables passed to Windows work, and that Microsoft gave the the magic WHQL certification."
Return it and buy from a manufacturer... no need to disassemble the BIOS, your time is worth more than that.
It appears that within an hour there was a workaround posted on the same forum.
Have you Meta Moderated t
Fuck Foxconn. Now you know, never by anything from then ever again. Personally I haven't bought anything from them, but I'm an end-user and perhaps Foxconn is bigger in the server area, I don't know. Fuck 'em!
If you're planning on running a Linux OS on your machine, don't use Foxconn. If they don't want customers, that's their business.
...Windows hardware back. Seriously, who is stupid enough today not to support linux?
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
There are plenty of other manufacturors who make boards that run fine with Linux. Buy those boards instead of trying to buy the cheapest boards in the list (which generally aren't considered very good anyway) at whatever online store you're shopping at. Foxconn has no obligation to support anything they don't think they'll make a profit doing. Get over it. You aren't entitled to have every motherboard on the market support your favorite flavor of OS. Vote with your money.
Do your research before buying (search online forums using Google, etc.) to see if a particular board you want to buy has been used by someone else successfully to run whatever it is you want to run. I've done this for every purchase I've made for the past 20 years, particularly with respect to Linux.
There's no excuse for your not doing your due diligence before you buy. File this under "Yo Fault".
Yeah, except for the part where the motherboard claims to be ACPI compliant when it really isn't. That's sort of false advertising.
there is more than one motherboard manufacturer. Foxconn is more than welcome to take a FISS approach with regards to their customer base: the market will issue any required adjustments to their attitude.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Says it all really :\
that linux should have an option to select tables from the bios built into the kernel. :) anyone want to add a kernel patch ?
linux - fixing bios bugs and hardware problems since 200l.
In my workplace we run Windows, OS X, and Linux. I have the expectation of being able to use Linux on any x86 kit we buy. Absent an explanation or attitude change from this vendor, I won't recommend their kit here for Windows use either. That seems somewhat important so I'll repeat it:
I will not buy Foxconn kit for Windows use if Linux compatibility is impaired.
Why don't you just build your own BIOS and be done with it.
I build computers for friends and family. After seeing this, I will no longer buy any Foxconn parts of any kind.
(and I actually did buy a foxconn motherboard for a friend's computer. It was really poor regardless of whether or not it was going to use linux.)
The title of this trick is misleading. It should solve those problems by pretending to be Windows to the BIOS.
best example for modern fascism
How old is this guy?
If I had a serious problem I would be more professional in my way of contacting support. Certainly his way of approaching the Customer Support is looking like some angry teenager.
So let me get this straight.
Some small motherboard manufacturer has flawed ACPI tables and refuses to fix them, therefore they MUST out to sabotage Linux? I feel I've missed a step in your logical deduction here. (Oh, wait, who wants to do that?) It certainly cannot be general profit-driven apathy, can it? Evidently the poster really didn't think it through - even if there was malicious intent, it isn't like this is Asus or Gigabyte we're talking about here, it is some obscure manufacturer. Skimping on a motherboard when building a system is a horrible idea anyway for these very reasons.
Why the poster persists in sticking with such a POS board with obviously wrong BIOS is beyond me. I guess we have to create a tempest in a teacup about Linux yet again.
Wouldn't this be Foxconn choice as a manufacture. What they see is that their hardware works on their target OS, windows, and would rather not spend resources on correcting the error because they explicitly say that they do not support Linux.
I am not saying this is right, but the manufacturer has rights to choose what platforms they support. If you do not like it, and then don't buy it.
If you follow the link in the story, you would see that the poster claims the following:
1) Foxconn advertises its motherboard as ACPI compliant thus potentially misleading people into thinking that linux should be able to handle the board. The company does nothing to counter such possible misunderstandings. One could argue that Foxconn is not obliged to do anything of that sort but for customers it is not as simple as "doing homework" as you suggest. Foxconn doesn't say that things break on linux. They only say "works with windows" and "ACPI compliant". The only way to check is to buy and use (at least until this story).
2) The BIOS actively looks for the OS and passes a modified table to linux. It does not even ask the OS to identify itself and go along with that identification. It rather keeps on having random checks to ensure it is running on windows. I can't think of any good reason why they need to do that unless they want to actively break things for linux.
3) The poster smells something fishy in Foxconn's behavior. Right or wrong, I don't know. But if the poster is right in his suspicion (which s/he must believe), it would be a natural, rational and justified behavior to bitch and moan about it rather than just return the board for a refund. Society owes a lot to such "troublemakers".
my foxxcon motherboard had acpi errors in linux and the only way to stop them was to disable acpi in the bios (which means that the computer cannot turn itself off) although recently I have found someone has coded a patch and so I can use debian with acpi on. The amd power management stuff is completely borked in windows and linux. Oh and one of the pci slots doesn't work when an AGP card is used, a big problem on a matx board.
Check on google.... LOTS of troubles with Foxconn for Linux Users... it's not only 1 user... but only 1 of them took the time to decompile the BIOS.
I can't call that English
First, Foxconn's hardware isn't the only with DSDT errors. Every use a Dell? HP? Considering how sloppily lots of this BIOS code is written, it's a miracle anything works at all. These errors only mean that he's stuck using APM in place of ACPI. If the user wanted a decent motherboard, he'd have bought it from ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI, etc. It's not some conspiracy, it's a cheap motherboard vendor using a defective BIOS that doesn't give crap about it's customers. Really, how's that not normal?
Although this vendor seems definitely not trying to support Linux with it's BIOS, the hard truth is that it's not so easy even for those who try. For more information, there is currently a thread on the LKML disussing this and how to improve the situation.
In particular, latest kernels claim to be every versions of Windows at the same time, and not Linux! That's not easy to handle for the BIOS writer...
The point is that they advertised that they are ACPI compatible when they are not. And no, "it works on Windows" is not enough to claim ACPI compatibility.
Crap. Avoid it. The DSDT isn't the only thing they crippled.
A company that isn't able -- or isn't willig to -- correct this problem speaks for itself.
Evolution and market says: :)
Be happy, say goodbye to another crap maker
i have seen this coming the war against freedom of thought and sharing ...were dose it end?
I was playing "devil's advocate"... you have to look at the problem from the motherboard manufacturer's point of view.
When you speak in huge, run on, sentences, describe your correspondent as "terrorists" and accuse them of "sabotage", and of being paid of Microsoft to peddle "intentionally broken [...] filth", don't be surprised when they back... slowly... away and want nothing to do with you or your paranoid ravings.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
This is active sabotage.
They haven't lost a customer, they've gained an enemy. This is an attack. Do not let them get away with it.
Guess what ? the acpi impyementation in OpenBSD says `oh, sure, we're windows'.
Where do you think this is going ?
Most card makers don't give a shit about linux and other OSes, the only acpi implementation that's going to be tested is... windows!
so, say you're windows, and cope with it, that's the only sane way to make things work.
Dear Ryan,
Stop sending us these!!!
Oh, right. Nevermind.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Why should a bios _CARE_ what OS you're running?
(seriously, why? I want to learn.)
Here is most of the original article.
The pesky junk filter meant I had to snip some of the code out - sorry.
Posting AC for the usual reason(s).
Foxconn deliberately sabotaging their BIOS to destroy Linux ACPI
Edit: Please tell Foxconn what you think of their behavior:
http://www.foxconnchannel.com/support/online.aspx
You need to put in an email, and then it will bring up a form, choose Complain/Suggest.
Edit: Welcome Digg, Reddit, and Slashdot.
http://digg.com/linux_unix/Foxconn_d..._destroy_Linux
http://www.reddit.com/comments/6tcv8...their_bios_to/
(Will add Slashdot when I know the final URL)
------------
I disassembled my BIOS to have a look around, and while I won't post the results here,I'll tell you what I did find.
They have several different tables, a group for Windws XP and Vista, a group for 2000, a group for NT, Me, 95, 98, etc. that just errors out, and one for LINUX.
The one for Linux points to a badly written table that does not correspond to the board's ACPI implementation, causing weird kernel errors, strange system freezing, no suspend or hibernate, and other problems, using my modifications below, I've gotten it down to just crashing on the next reboot after having suspended, the horrible thing about disassembling any program is that you have no commenting, so it's hard to tell which does what, but I'll be damned if I'm going to buy a copy of Vista just to get the crashing caused by Foxconn's BIOS to stop, I am not going to be terrorized.
-----
How to fix:
Get Intel's BIOS ACPI source compiler:
sudo apt-get install iasl
Dump your DSDT table:
sudo cat /sys/firmware/acpi/tables/DSDT > dsdt.dat
Disassemble it:
iasl -d dsdt.dat
Open it in Gedit:
gedit dsdt.dsl
Fix Foxconn sabotage:
Find, the section that starts out with
Code:
If (_OSI ("Windows 2000"))
{
Store (0x04, OSVR)
}
Go down til you get to the first
Code:
}
Else
{
Past that you should see Linux alongside Windows NT, which is above another Else that leads to Windows Me.
Should look like:
Code:
If (MCTH (_OS, "Linux"))
{
Store (0x3, OSVR)
}
Change it to:
Code:
If (_OSI ("Linux"))
{
Store (Zero, OSVR)
}
Copy the section, and remove it and the other characters (CAREFULLY PRESERVING SYNTAX!!!!)
Then move the Linux section to right underneath Windows 2006 section.
_Code removed to get past junk filter_
So there you have it!
I was playing "uninformed jackass"... you have to look at the problem from the motherboard manufacturer's point of view.
fixed that for ya
Have to agree with you here. This is a case of false advertising if it isn't acpi compliant (there is no 90% compliant, or compliant if you use this-or-that software, all that is just non-compliant). I don't know about the slashdot readers that answer with "so what, just return it", but when I am looking for new hardware, I am very happy if people like him figure out who is trying to screw me with false claims, so I can skip these manufacturers from my list.
molmod.com - computing tips from a molecular modeling
News like this are the best advertisement for ASUS! :)
Btw. today was the first day, I've read anything about a company called "Foxconn". But I will remember this name!
True, any firm support what they want with their product.
But the point is that Foxconn claims their motherboards are ACPI compliant, and this guy demonstrated that there's specifical code on the BIOS to fail Linux boot.
To not support a product is a thing, to do all for Linux failing boot is way another.
The way I read this, is that its not that they "don't support Linux", but they seem to be actively sabataging it.. Hope Reddit/Digg/Slashdot chews them up and spits them out....
THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
This may sound like a wild conspiracy theory, but perhaps the motherboard manufacturer is testing a mechanism that will be used in future versions of the X-BOX? Can you imagine how embarassing it must be to Steve Ballmer when he reads about people running Linux on his precious X-Box? A Microsoft-branded machine running the "enemy" Linux.
From what I've read about the disassembly of the BIOS, it seems like a blatant attempt to make sure that the machine ONLY works for Windows. This is different from only testing it for Windows. This appears to be a clear attempt to prevent it from working on any other OS.
Again, it looks like they're trying to position themselves for the X-Box motherboard market if they can make this work.
This creeped me out. I guess I'll have to ask if every single component I buy (although I'm a laptop person) is compatible with Linux, as you have really dumb manufacturers like these...
Foxconn also accuses him of making "idle treats".
I want an idle treat.
Badass Resumes
On behalf of my company I've been working with a pretty well known optical drive manufacturer. I'm not going to name names hence posting AC.
They had completely ignored the ATA spec when designing their new laptop form factor drive, using 1.7volt logic rather than 5Volt for the control lines.
Seems the Laptop manufacturers are doing the same hence it working with those, but not everything is compatible.
Certainly we had issues with our product.
They've been back to the drawing board and built some new silicon to rectify the problem and now it's incorporated into the main model line.
The difference with Foxxconn is that we don't just buy one of them we buy several thousand units monthly.
You tend to get a little better support than them blaming you for the problem.
That they'd have a problem with the product when doing this had never crossed their mind!!
However, whilst in the past it's always been easy to ignore one single customer there are forums and places now where disgruntled parties will gather and collective mass might chance a few attitudes. Certainly one of my jobs is keeping an eye out for any such postings about our products.
Actually, if they didn't support Linux, it'd be one thing. It's a completely different issue when they, as they do in this case, actively detects Linux and sends it a faulty DSDT table.
I'm sure we could get ISO to fast track a few "adjustments"
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
It is one thing to not support Linux... hey this is ok, it is their right! But is another thing to sabotage Linux! I have read the whole post on ubuntuforums, if what this guy sais is true, then it is sabotage. The Bios looks for Linux deliberatly and passes bad instructions. If they would not support linux there should not be a table for linux
Who wants to try to install OpenBSD in those mainboards, fail to install, and then ask Theo de Raadt to speak kindly to Foxconn ?
I know I'll get shouted down by the free market types but, many industries are required by law to meet minimum standards that correspond to the way a product is designed, manufactured, marketed, sold, and disposed-of, why should the consumer electronics and especially computer industries (including software) be any treated any differently? The IT industry is the only industry in the history of modern manufacturing based capitalist economies that has never been regulated in any form (with the possible exception of anti-monopoly laws, and we've all seen how effective they are). WTF makes our industry so special?
As far as I'm concerned if you want to sell a product that is completely proprietary in design then sure go right ahead, I'll concur with the free market types here.
BUT
If you claim that your product is compliant or compatible with some standard or another and you are found wanting then you should be held accountable with _very_ stiff penalties until you either correct the problem (including fixing it for those you've already sold to) or the penalties incurred send you into bankruptcy at which point all your intellectual property should be forcibly placed in the public domain.
<rant>
And for all the free market types who'll complain at what I've just said. My attitude is if you want to go into business and you don't do your due diligence when you design, manufacture, market and sell your product and the regulatory authorities take your not-so-hard earned cash away as a result... I say tough-shit!
</rant>
This is nothing new and there is nothing *fishy* going on. As a side, my MSI notebook also has some non-compliant tables which causes FreeBSD's ACPICA (which was written by Intel) to not recognize the battery status light.
The issue is that Microsoft OSes are not ACPI compliant period. They are semi-ACPI compliant and always have been. Most motherboard manufacturers use the Hardware SDK in order to get the WHQL certification. The SDK provides tools to automatically generate ACPI tables (and in fact if he looks at the DSDT he can see how the tables were generated, typically they are stamped by the SDK).
Nothing to see here...move along.....
Sucks for them that they're going to get some bad press about this as it is now on Slashdot's front page.
I don't have a problem with people getting bad press when they advertise functionality they don't actually have. I don't have a problem with them not including chipset drivers for specific OS's, or utilities coded for OS's they don't want to support. But borking your BIOS to throw a monkey wrench into things if Linux is the OS is pretty messed up.
Hope nobody tries to do something silly like boot a Linux Live distro to recover a system where the Windows OS has gone out on one of these things.
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
Ahh, shame I didn't copy my complaint to them. But I let 'em have it. I'm never buying Foxconn again. Their mobos have sucked pretty much since 6150K8MA anyway. Screw em.
Send your spendthrift head of state this
I don't blame them for not wanting to support !Windows. I do blame them for writing broken ACPI tables and trusting Microsoft's legendarily forgiving implementation do their work for them. I do blame them for saying they're ACPI compliant when they're blatently not. I do blame them for not even expressing interest in fixing it when it's pointed out to them.
Sure, they're not necessarily evil, but they are displaying incompetence I find unacceptable in a hardware vendor, and I don't think it's in any way bad that they're getting bad press because of it.
http://antitrust.slated.org/www.iowaconsumercase.org/011607/3000/PX03020.pdf
This is the perfect example that we NEED it, and NEED IT FAAAAST.
Send your spendthrift head of state this
Maybe I just don't get out much, but I've never heard of that manufacturer.
If they are indeed falsely advertising ACPI compliance then yeah, something should be done, but at the same time I think the "you get what you pay for" mantra is applicable.
Whatever happened to the concept of generic hardware? It usedc to be that when you bought a printer, it would work with everything. They published the escape codes that you used to change fonts, or draw lines, or whatever. Same thing with modems. You used to be able to grab any modem off the shelf and expect it to work with any computer.
Somewhere along the line, hardware started becoming Windows Only. Modems became Winmodems. Printers became Winprinters. I'm guessing the same thing applies to webcams, and scanners, and other hardware. Now we've got a motherboard with a Windows only BIOS. It sickens me.
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
So he bought an off-brand cheapo board, and it sucked? Amazing.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
If I have learned anything from SCO, it is that you don't even need evidence to start a law suit.
I say we get a bunch of that have been "harmed" by their false statements of ACPI support, and sue them for time and effort. We could get millions. 1/3 goes to lawyers, and 2/3 goes to open source projects.
We "reasonably" expected their claims to be truthful. When we asked them for a fix, they changed their claims. That's gotta be worth a lawyer's time!!!
Frankly, I agree with you.
But if a user takes the time to find the cause of the problem and tell you exactly what it is, and it is a problem that could be fixed with a BIOS update. Is it a good idea to fix the problem and improve the quality of your product, or ignore it and get a reputation for providing poor quality products?
Sure it will still require some resources to fix, but this guy has already done the hard work of debugging and identifying the cause of the problem.
they can write their own fix.
Poorly designed, or incomplete bios implementations are not the exception. They are in fact a fairly common occurrence. The DSDT table being missing, incomplete, or just wrong is so common in fact, that a number of solutions exist.
See here: http://acpi.sourceforge.net/dsdt/index.php
Non sequitur: Your facts are uncoordinated.
This is important and I want to expound on it. I work in a Microsoft shop. Really, it's IIS this, MSSQL that, .NET for all dev, and we've all got the latest and greatest Office suite. Strangely, we've heard rumors that our software is going to be tested Vista, but QA hasn't received a Vista machine, yet. With all of that out of the way, I use Linux in various ways on many of our test computers. Mostly, it is just boot CDs, such as Partimage Is Not Ghost and Ultimate Boot CD. So, just because hardware is meant for Windows doesn't mean that it will never see another OS. Hardware interoperability on the software level is necessary.
On another note, I've encountered Foxconn boards in the past... usually broken and being replaced.
From the comments above, it seems that most of the above people would be very happy if the MoBo just supports Linux. Forcing customers to use Windows is wrong and forcing customers to use either Windows or Linux becomes correct? Why would a MoBo manufacturer really need to care about people's OS? Any manufacturer who is forcing customers to not use FreeBSD or OpenBSD is equally bad. I would even go so far as to say that any manufacturer who gives a _finite_ list of OSs (it doesn't matter whether Linux is in the list or not) is doing evil.
The largest prime factor of my UID is 263267.
I'm a visitor from 1995 and I thought that the BIOS was essentially operating system independent. So I looked on the Internet and it turns out that this new ACPI standard indeed has a table, the DSDT (Differentiated System Description Table) which is actually not really a table, but a little program written in AML (ACPI Machine Language) that the OS is supposed to interpret. And I wondered where all that Kernel bloat came from. Anyway, since the OS is supposed to interpret it you could probably simply pass an identifier for Windows XP instead of one for GNU/Linux. However, Microsofts implementation of the standard is buggy, which means that, if the BIOS was written with that in mind, the Windows version of the table might not work on your compliant Linux kernel. So you need to patch the DSDT, effectively writing a device driver for your BIOS. Which raises the question of what purpose this AML serves in the first place... Seriously, sometimes I really feel like I'm visiting some alien planet.
I'd never heard of Foxconn before.
I guess any publicity is good publicity though.
Oh, wait...
This is more a case of *Microsoft* not being ACPI compliant. The different versions of Windows have historically broken ACPI in hilariously random and catastrophic ways. You can decompile any BIOS on the market and find a similar table. If you're willing to rule out malicious sabotage on the part of Foxconn (which would be a pretty ballsy move given that they manufacture Intel's reference motherboards), the fault can probably be traced back to their BIOS vendor - either AMI or Award, if memory serves.
I guess we know what the "Con" bit refers to now. I can only speculate on the hidden meaning behind "Fox".
I have an XFX board (with an NVidia 650i chipset) in one of my machines which has a similar problem. It reports the correct ACPI data to Windows (XP and Vista 64), but the ACPI data given to Linux specifies the wrong CPU frequencies.
Disabling speedstep makes the system work fine, but reduces power efficiency and increases heat and noise. I have tried very hard to get XFX to patch the BIOS, but they refuse to believe that it doesn't work. Their argument is "it works on Windows, so it's clearly a Linux bug". Looking at the DSDT shows different data on Linux and Windows, so it's pretty clear to me that the board's BIOS is doing something funny.
I haven't returned the board because it's not a critical problem, but it does annoy me.
"It is better to die for an idea that will live than to live for an idea that will die" - Steve Biko
Especially considering how ACPI doesn't really seem to be the greatest standard so far conceived, and on top of that is an Intel-Microsoft cooperative product, I just wouldn't bet my life and limb on its specification being sound.
I find it odd that quick remarks against Foxconn have been modded "troll" and "flamebait", just like interesting and insightful comments that say something bad about Microsoft usually are in other threads. If you work for MS and have mod points and are modding these comments against Foxconn down, two things:
1. It is suggestive that this is another Microsoft trick against Linux. Your downmodding of anti-Foxconn comments just fuels the conspiracy theories
2. When the metamods mark your mods as "unfair" you my not get mod points again. If I'm given one of the "flamebaits" or "trolls" (except the one that says "first post", that one was fairly modded) I will mod the mod as "unfair" and I imagine other metamoderators will do the same.
I'm checking the "no karma bonus" box, please feel free to mod this ot comment down further if you wish.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Ok, ya, they probably are falsely advertising, and just shoved it off because they got MS WHQL stickers (most companies do the same anymore)...
But you know what? I don't feel too much sympathy - because honestly, you get what you pay for. Any PC builder with half a brain (which it looks like he has plenty of if he knows how to pick apart the bios) is going to know that manufacturers like Foxconn, ECS, Abit, etc are going to be horrible quality (or at best sub-par).
Basically, he probably was being a cheapskate and went with the $30 or 40 dollar Foxconn board, when for $50, a mere $10 more, he could have gotten a fantastic Asus motherboard, or at *least* MSI or Gigabyte...
After having read the Ubuntu forums I was flat out disgusted at how Foxconn responded to the customer. I have never received a response so rude from tech support. They outright told him to stop sending them e-mail because they did not want to address his problem. Nevermind their poor products... how about their customer service? That is pitiful and they fully deserve whatever comes their way.
People who are born in the age of winmodems assume unquestioningly and "intuitively" that hardware can only be made for an OS and supporting OSs is a cost. In reality, infinite OSs' support can be simply achieved by manufacturing in way that's compatible with open standards. If they can't do that, which is quite normal because sometimes the standards are very feature-less, they should at-least put out technical specifications regarding how an OS can interface with the hardware.
The largest prime factor of my UID is 263267.
Why motherboard manufacturer has to "support" any OS instead of supporting a standard? The same applies for the web: don't support browsers, support standards. Operating systems, browsers, etc. just need to implement the standard. Apparently Microsoft does generally pretty bad job there.
True, Nobody HAS to support anything. But should be made to. Hardware manufactures, design hardware for a certain architecture. Support for such should not be based on what OS you use. To do so creates an anti-competitive market and should be treated as such in law.
They are ACPI Compliant for Windows. You know, the operating system they support. They don't support Linux, so it doesn't matter if the ACPI tables are correct or not.
Now, just don't buy their products and everyone is happy.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
two options
1) Try FreeBSD
2) Return the motherboard and get a different one from a different maker.
I've just opened official ACPI specs and Microsoft's WHQL is NOWHERE EVEN MENTIONED, let alone of being needed and sufficient criteria of ACPI compliance.
IOW, product is ACI compliant when it works in accordance with specs. Once there is violation found, they can no longer claim ACPI compliance.
thats funny, their website doesnt seem to load in my browser either...i guess it doesnt support firefox 3 in freebsd 7. what business actively tries to subvert the customer?? buying a new motherboard to replace your shitty foxconn is STILL cheaper than a copy of vista!
Good people go to bed earlier.
Is there an industry group that can be contacted in an attempt to force them to remove "ACPI Compliant"? If the original analysis is accurate, clearly they are not ACPI compliant.
Furthermore, since they clearly are breaking ACPI compliance when it detects Linux, and they state ACPI compliance, doesn't this mean they are fraudulently advertising? Seems both the State Attorney General and consumer watchdog groups would like to hear about this.
This is a dent in the growing assumption we have where you think you can install Linux on anyone's computer with a bit of research of their peripherals. And even then you can often replace incompatible peripherals but you're not as likely to replace a motherboard.
Pete Boyd
I have a motherboard (ECS) that gives a kernel panic when any Linux distro tries to boot. Since the installer boots Linux, I can't install or test any Linux distro on it. On one hand I feel certain that there is a bug in the motherboard, but on the other hand a kernel panic is like a GPF, and it should not occur even with bad input. At the very least, add a check and give me a warning or error message better than "kernel panic". So IMO, there is also a bug in the Linux kernel.
Given the fact that this problem with the motherboard is not fatal to any other OS I've tried, I consider the bug in the Linux kernel to be worse than the bug in the motherboard. Should developers have to deal with bad input? Not in a perfect world, but this has never been a perfect world.
I have one for you but it's just lying around here doing nothing
"I'm not a procrastinator, I'm temporally challenged"
This is why the reputable hardware and software venodors will ask for enough information such that they can verify the problem themselves.
This is part of what separates the "real stuff" from the "consumer crap".
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
This is more a case of *Microsoft* not being ACPI compliant.
We really don't know if this applies here. After all, the BIOS is feed wrong information to Linux, on purpose, which is different that what it provides to Win-OSs. For all we know, it may be providing correct capability information to Windows and simply providing bad information to Linux.
Ultimately, one has to wonder about the motives when a market segment is purposely excluded. No company in their right mind wants to exclude a potential sale unless there is money to be made elsewhere from that exclusion. Or perhaps, as you originally stated, they are nowhere near ACPI compliant and realized early on Linux highlights this fact. Even so - why add additional code to further break things if they are already broken without a monetary return elsewhere to justify the extra effort.
... in Soviet Russia.
Or...
In Soviet Russia Linux refuses to support Foxcon. ... wait. That's not funny.
My info is almost 2 years old (out of that part of the business for almost 2 years), but Intel Motherboards were all manufactured by Foxconn.
Also known as market pressure.
What financial incentives are offered, if any, for a mainboard manufacturer to utilise a BIOS written for a minority kernel? Answer: none. OEMs generally still do ship personal computers with Microsoft-ware preinstalled for several very good reasons:
1. Microsoft offer a "standardised" set of interrupts with which to cooperate with their software. The Linux/x86 kernel has to follow this "standard" or it won't work with the hardware. Bloody hard to do when the "standard" isn't documented.
2. Microsoft offer bulk OEM licensing for boxshifters such as Dell and Packard Bell to buy licenses in the millions at stupid prices an independent high-street shop could only dream of. Three quid a license? In your dreams, Mom-N-Pop-Shop. You get to pay £49+VAT like everybody else.
3. Microsoft-ware is what most people are used to. It comes preinstalled on boxed PCs. Linux is getting there, but on homebuilt machines and niche hardware such as DVRs and EeePC/similar subnotes more commonly than the latest greatest Dell XPS10000000000000000000000000. The niche hardware is specifically built with Linux in mind, indeed it usually comes with custom kernel and UI. It's not impossible but it might be very difficult for even the most hardened hobbyist to shoehorn XP onto such devices.
Now, you might be surprised if you install another system such as Linux and hand over the keyboard to your 14yo son (I know I was - my lad's HDD died last week, he got a new drive and specifically asked for Linux put back on it... "because Windows is shit!"). You wouldn't expect a kid that age to be interested in productivity packages like the GIMP or Rosegarden or FCP or Blender, but he's rattling around on that laptop right this minute like he's been doing it for years. He even keeps bugging me to borrow the DV camera - I might end up buying him his own at this rate, I'm not getting a look-in.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
Exactly, but here's a better way to say it:
"I will not buy from Foxconn if they do not care about the quality of their BIOS."
Kids love video games and he's no exception. That's what the XBox is for and he knows and appreciates that.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
Why does a motherboard even need to know what OS you're running? Isn't the operating system running on the CPU and using the hardware that's available? If a motherboard only works when using a "MS Windows" table, just tell it you're Windows even if you're Linux?
Imagine the fallout that could result if someone like PJ picks up on these things...
Don't care about Linux? Fair enough. Break their own product, so Linux can't run on it? How should I trust this company about my Windows installation? Even if it works perfectly on it, will it do so reliably? And why should the machine do extra work just to exclude a product, that isn't installed, but may be installed? Oh, they want me not to run Linux on my machine? My own machine? I think, I will not use any of your products -- on my windows machines.
Short note to Microsoft: if you encourage companies to play that way, your very own products get tainted.
cb
I want an idle treat.
it will ruin your appetite.
if you are still hungry after dinner, THEN we'll see...
back on topic, it seems that the list of 'bad hardware vendors' is on the rise. I have added creative to my list since they have been acting evil a lot, lately. apple is also on my shit-list for the iphone fiasco they are doing to their CUSTOMERS.
who else is on the shit list? lets hear your version and why vendor X should be boycotted.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
...or might this be an 'AMIBios' issue ?
My Biostar TForce 590 SLI Deluxe crashes during startup unless I pass the -NOACPI kernel parameter to it.
I had a similar problem with a previous computer, IIRC it ran on an AMI Bios as well.
Unsurprisingly, faulty DSDTs often have a MSFT creator code. YMMV.
Yeah, except for the part where the motherboard claims to be ACPI compliant when it really isn't. That's sort of false advertising.
Not really. Foxconn claims to only be certified to run Windows. Thus, their claim of ACPI compliance is consistent with their advertisement.
So, while the Linuxan may be offended by this whole concept, Foxconn didn't do anything wrong. Their bottom line is apparently unaffected by linux buyers.
Bearded Dragon
....Partimage Is Not Ghost....
Ding! Ding! Ding! We rely on that too and it is a major factor. If I can ever sort out how to make Clonezilla use existing DHCP then I may go to that. We also use various Live CDs for password resets, data recovery, and what not. So Windows machines that barf on Linux would be a no-go here.
Foxconn competitors such as pcchips, biostar, and Asrock all produce low cost motherboards that work fine with linux and have for years. In particular pcchips has been a linux ally for almost a decade, they were shipping linux cd's with their motherboards back in the 20th century(remember corel linux).
The link points here.
I don't work for FoxConn, but I do work for a hardware and software vendor. And here's some insight - as I have been in a situation similar to FoxConn - but being both the accuser and the guilty party at the same time ;)
WHQL is kind of a big deal for hardware vendors. The main attractive is being able to add the "certified compatible with Windows" to your product box. Honestly speaking - having the logo there gives you *some* cred with users - at least, with Windows users ;)
So your competitors are nibbling at you, the product has to ship, and you need to have the logo in the box. What do you do? If you're already late to market, you hack. You install all the different flavors of Windows, check if it works - if it doesn't and crashes, well, some of that can be attributed to Windows itself. As long as you can install the OS and pass the certification, you're good, the product ships, you get your bonus and a pat in the back for delivering on time.
So say that during testing you DO install Linux and crashes - time for a reality check. If the product spec said "Windows WHQL is a must", and making Linux happy means not passing WHQL - tough luck. Linux won't run.
Or if "fixing the product so it passes WHQL" means "screwing Linux users", well, let me think about that ;)
Many engineers working on any given product would like to ship the best possible product - the one that has a 100% compliant ACPI, APM, TPM, you-name-it implementation.
But when time is short and the management chain is breathing down your neck . . . you do whatever it has to be done to be able to ship. And hope that once the product is out there, you WILL be able to go back and clean up the mess - and ship a BIOS upgrade. Everyone is happy.
Sadly, by the time the product shipped, you've been reassigned to other product - and you will only go back to the first one if the Windows crowd complains.
The solution is easy - Linux users to boycott the brand. But then again: if the mobo was designed to be sold to another company to be used as the basis for a product that will only run Windows . . . It isn't like you care a lot about losing the Linux business. This is only the reality - hard as it might seem.
And to the guy that originally found the bug: next time, remember that maybe the guy at the other side of the email exchange also thinks the situation sucks, but he's powerless to change it.
Because if even if he was provided with a full working patch for the BIOS (that doesn't break Windows compatibility), he might need to reapply for WHQL if he patches the BIOS - which means more $$$ and time spent on a product that is already shipping. So.
Is ACPI trademarked and handed out only to those who are certified? If so, take your findings to the certification authority and try to get them to lose the certification.
Do you have ESP?
...the author of TFA has gone overboard, assumed conspiracy before eliminating cock-up and started firing off accusations of collusion between Foxconn and Microsoft to the FTC and flaming the (probably powerless) guy on the help desk. Even if true, powder needs to be kept dry and ducks arranged in a line before such serious allegations are made.
Now, if it can be shown as a matter of fact that the board does not comply with ACPI standards (which TFA seems to have established) then it should not be sold as ACPI compliant and Foxconn should take responsibility for the mislabeling. Full stop. WHQL certification is probably just an empirical test of ACPI functionality under a single operating system, which doesn't trump a demonstrable breach of ACPI protocol. Foxconn are not obliged to support Linux - but a customer should be entitled to make their own judgement about a products suitability based upon the standards it claims to support.
That much could and should have been put to Foxconn firmly but politely without engaging flame mode. Accusations of sabotage and collusion with M$ is just supplying them with ready-made straw men to rebut.
As for conspiracy, "Least hypothesis" is that some past version of the BIOS was, at one point, intended to support Linux (perhaps badly, relying on OS-specific kludges), but they forgot to remove the code. If you're going to accuse them of deliberately sabotaging Linux users you need to get some independent confirmation that the code in question is malicious and not simply buggy.
Remember - there is no need for collusion with MS. The MS monoculture means that there's no particular incentive to carefully adhere to standards or test on non-MS systems. Especially when (as anybody who's tried to get a web page to work on both IE and Mozilla knows) supporting MS often requires, er, "enhancements" to the way the standard is implemented...
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
I see you bought one of these defective motherboards. What do you expect from a company with "con" in the name, honesty? It's Foxconn for krissake!
There's a construction company here in illinois, I see their trucks all the time; Conmstrux. "Con's trucks". I wouldn't have someone like that build an outhouse, but as with Foxconn it is a kind of truth in advertising.
To a Welshman or a Scotsman would it sound like "Fucks Con?" I hope these boards are sold in Britian, where they have REAL false advertising laws, unlike here in the US. They need to be slapped down hard for these shenannigans.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Yeah. It's called the FTC, or Federal Trade Commission. We could give intel or microsoft, the ACPI maintainers, a call, but I doubt they'd help us much.
I think they don't hate Linux, they just don't care... I /may/ be that the took the code from another motherboard, made some quick & dirty changes to the dsdt table and submited it to the automated WHQL verificator until it succeed. And since this board only support XP or Vista (check the manual), old, out-of-date parts of code are floating in the BIOS.
Nobody cares, nobody will react. Engineering something correct is too expensive nowadays, so engineers are only told to make something that works.
Thanks for the information. I will make sure I will never buy or recommend a Foxconn product.
http://acpi.sourceforge.net/dsdt/index.php
--- Users are like bacteria -> Each one causing a thousand tiny crises until the host finally gives up and dies.
Actually I'm Scottish and it just makes me think of Metal Gear Solid >.> A mix of FOX and 'Ottacon'. Perhaps with a really heavy fake accent like Fat Bastard from Austin Powers or Groundskeeper Willy it would sound like fuxconn though, hehe.
which is totally what she said
No need to waste time thinking. There are other great products in the market :P .
Given the BIOS should be on its way out, being replaced by the more modern EFI, are there any generally avaialble EFI based mother boards? Also, does EFI solve some of the issues with regards to ACPI mentioned here? Linux supports EFI as far as I am aware (well there is ELILO).
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Comes vs Microsoft was a real case, I believe Microsoft lost, FWIW. http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20070117045655795
ACPI compliance should be a prerequisite for Windows certification.
They can't claim something not doing ACPI is OK because MS says so.
Here in the UK I would take their sorry asses to the trade commission for false advertisement.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Yeah, except for the part where the motherboard claims to be ACPI compliant when it really isn't. That's sort of false advertising.
sort of?
last year I purchased a print server where it stated clearly on the box and the advertisement that it supported usb 1.1 and 2.0. Connected it to my usb 2.0 printer and it didn't work. Couldn't print to the darn thing. Connected a 1.1 and printed just fine.
Eventually the manufacturer admitted they had 'some problems' with 2.0 printers and were kind enough to refund my purchase.
Foxconn should have cut their losses and just said 'oops sorry, my bad' and be done with it.
I guess they can't admit they screwed up and were wrong. Pride will do that.
Has Comcast disconnected your Internet account? Same here. You can read about it at http://comcastissue.blogspot.com
Return it, and let them know why.
Report them if you can to the respective authorities for flase advertising regarding ACPI support.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
"...clever" usage of the dollar sign back.
-- "Wherever you go, there you are." -Buckaroo Banzai
Ummm...don't buy from them? Honestly I've never heard of Foxconn....does nobody buy Asus or Gigabyte or any number of "brand name" motherboard anymore?
"Never attribute to malice what can be sufficiently explained by stupidity."
I had an ASUS motherboard (M2N32 Sli Deluxe) that sounds like it had nearly the same problem back in 2006. I had to disable ACPI, APM, smp, and a bunch of other stuff to get Knoppix or any other liveCD to boot, and then it was still giving kernel errors. Five months or so after the board was released, ASUS pushed a BIOS update that just said "Fixed Linux". Sure enough after a quick reflash everything worked like a charm. Maybe Microsoft stopped paying their protection fee to ASUS?
We consumer are never right.
The companies are always oh so gracious to take our money so we can be blessed by the usage of their products.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I read the thread on the Ubuntu forums, where the guy's correspondence with Foxconn was posted. What frustrates me time and time again is seeing these often immature, scathing, and/or accusatory emails being sent by self-proclaimed representatives of the Linux and/or open source community.
In particular, "Yeah, well, I allege that you guys thoroughly suck. Learn how to write a BIOS before you go selling hardware with falsified specs." Come on, how does that help the situation at all? Speculating on the motives of Foxconn and/or the BIOS provider is fine for forums like this. But when dealing with the manufacturer, keep it professional, and stick to the issues at hand. In this case, the issue is that the board claims to be ACPI compliant, and it is not. That can be proven and repeatably verified. In fact, Linux compatibility isn't even an issue here. That the BIOS fails to work with Linux is a side-effect (i.e. Linux assumes a working ACPI implementation, and this motherboard does not provide that).
Of course the bigger problem is that while a standard exists (i.e. ACPI), Microsoft can get away with using its weight to effectively subvert it. Like another poster here said, there are lots of motherboards with imperfect DSDTs that cause various degrees of headache with Linux. This Foxconn board appears to be one of the worst, however.
If I were to speculate, I doubt Foxconn or the BIOS provider (AMI) is actively trying to break Linux. I think it's just poor coding and/or lack of concern for adhering to the ACPI spec (which in turn breaks Linux). The big money is in supporting Microsoft Windows, so that's what the vendors will do. Ideally, there would be an official "ACPI certification" offered by ISO or some not-for-profit third party, and both the vendors and Microsoft would have to comply. But the reality is that while there is a standard, it's not closely followed, and instead has degraded into vendors and Microsoft working too close, effectively preempting the specification. In other words, a Microsoft certification does not imply ACPI compliance. It should, but Microsoft doesn't gain anything from enforcing that.
As for poor coding... I've seen plenty of code written by people who either didn't know what they were doing or didn't care. The result is that you get lots of crummy hacks to take care of special cases. Seriously, why would a company go out of their way to not work with Linux? Yes, conspiracy is a possibility. But I think the more likely reason is that the lousy support was either done by someone who didn't care or didn't know enough to do it correctly... and/or it was an after-thought, a total kludge that didn't go through the typical QA process.
Anyway... I give Foxconn credit for at least replying with readable, mostly grammatically correct, non-form letters. Many hardware vendors I've dealt with either reply with worthless form letters, broken, non-sense English, and/or don't reply at all. Given that this person actually had the ear of a presumably "real" person, I have to wonder: if he'd kept his dialogue more professional, left out the name-calling, accusations and allegations, and remained true to the crux of the matter (non-compliant ACPI implementation), perhaps Foxconn would have been more receptive.
Buy Intel branded boards. They use Linux to validate their Chipset, CPU, and Motherboard designs before they send out their reference platform designs to the other board manufacturers who use Intel chipsets.
Congratulations on making the only informed post in this whole thread so far. Just about any DSDT will have OS-specific sections. I just checked my Toshiba laptop with Phoenix BIOS and sure enough, there it is. The presence of Linux-specific sections is NOT evidence of deliberate sabotage. I swear, Slashbots are the most gullible people you can find anywhere, they believe anything that gets posted here no matter how ridiculous.
Foxconn also accuses him of making "idle treats".
I want an idle treat.
I want my treat to be Gagh, which is best served while still alive and kicking. I like it for the fight it puts up when eaten.
If it's an idle treat, wouldn't that imply that it lacks a purpose or follow-through and thus is in search of one, i.e. being consumed by you?
Food for thought...
I admire your satire, posting a link to an IE only site on /. You sir, are funny.
Looks like a part of the "Windows Logo'd Products List". The product is named "G33M-S by HON HAI PRECISION INDUSTRY CO.LTD".
I have an acer extensa 5620, and I have the following code in my dsdt.dsl :
If (CondRefOf (_OSI, Local0))
{
If (_OSI ("Linux"))
{
Store (0x01, LINX)
}
If (_OSI ("Windows 2001"))
{
Store (0x07D1, OSYS)
}
If (_OSI ("Windows 2001 SP1"))
{
Store (0x07D1, OSYS)
}
If (_OSI ("Windows 2001 SP2"))
{
Store (0x07D2, OSYS)
}
If (_OSI ("Windows 2006"))
{
Store (0x07D6, OSYS)
}
}
However suspend works fine for me and I have not random reboots.
Slashdot IS an idle treat! (Or a treat for idles? or is that just in Soviet Russia?)
Couldn't the FTC come in and whoop their ass for false advertising?
Just to follow up on it, I read through the thread and found that Foxconn linked to a page on Microsoft's site which supposedly explains ACPI compliance. Interestingly enough, that page refused to display on anything but IE.
The page does work in Firefox 3 if you use the User Agent Switcher extension to fool it into thinking you have IE (6 or 7).
Well not on my box.
I've been scratching my head for days.
No more foxconn for me or my clients.
Sorry its anonymous, public use / unsecure box.
Poorly designed, or incomplete bios implementations are not the exception. They are in fact a fairly common occurrence. The DSDT table being missing, incomplete, or just wrong is so common in fact, that a number of solutions exist.
See here: http://acpi.sourceforge.net/dsdt/index.php
And at this stage in the past interested public parties have filed class action suits, won HUGE damages which put "most abusive player x" under, and the rest shaped up really, really fast.
Urge the FSF to file class-action lawsuits for false advertising, anti-trust (a mobo that's supposed to be OS neutral under the standard evidently passing "special" tables to each os), and anything else in the book you can.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Anyone can see is a sabotage from Foxconn. The best thing we can do is: 1) boycott Foxconn mobos 2) charge the politicans and lawers to charge Foxconn for abuse The microsoft go too far this time.
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
Parent post is what makes Slashdot hilarious. You have missed the point entirely but you cannot see it because you're lacking perspective.
My original point about the article was that there was zero proof that Microsoft paid Foxconn. Nothing. And yet despite having a lack of proof of this, it was STILL enough for the author to speculate needlessly about elaborate conspiracy theories based upon a single borked ACPI table. Oh, sorry, your proof is, "but, Microsoft has done shady things before!" But the coup de grace is that you come along and make the EXACT same mistake - having absolutely no proof - and then following up by saying it is a "very serious" issue despite the fact is little more than speculation. You are right -- it is EXTREMELY serious -- I am calling my family right now to inform them of this grave situation.
The underlying issue here is a cultural one: a naively simple "us vs. them" worldview and a total lack of perspective. Until you grow up and realize that this isn't some "epic battle between good and evil," you are not qualified to make informed decisions about technology platforms -- you're just running off of pure emotion. Yes, it is crappy that they do not adhere to standards, but this is pretty normal in hardware and software, all things considered. And yes, maybe something fishy is going on, but it just as easily could be someone started making the table and then didn't finish it or just didn't get around to it. We just don't know, and if you don't know for sure, it is better to keep your mouth shut.
In short, crappy mobo manufacturer makes crappy BIOS and then doesn't want to support small operating system thus it MUST be a conspiracy! For a crowd that prides itself on using the scientific method, it sure isn't being used here.
I want an idle treat.
Easy when you are idle and have nothing better to do:
1) Remove your trousers/pants/under-pants/panties/skirt? .gov if you prefer!) ... mind you for most people on here they'd probably be in debt - when no-one sees/cares what they are doing in mums basement and/or online either!! Pretty much like most of our sad lifes, eh?! :)
2) Visit whitehouse.com (or
3) Give yourself an idle "treat".
4) Profit?!? (well maybe if you film and charge access....
I've been looking at the ACPI web site. Foxconn is not among the list of "adopters". BTW, to become an ACPI adopter, you have to mail to Microsoft, as they are the secretary of the ACPI SIG.
Yeah, except for the part where the motherboard claims to be ACPI compliant when it really isn't. That's sort of false advertising.
Does this merit a Class Action lawsuit?
You know, newegg and sites like that often have places where people can post reviews and thoughts on products. It may be helpful if a few (reasoned, non-hysterical) reviews show up there that mention this board has problems with Linux.
Recently I migrated my file server from an ECS motherboard I was unsure of to an Intel Q35 mobo manufactured by Foxconn. When I booted up again, the kernel hung when it reached ACPI detection, and I didn't know why. After grafting 2.6.24.5 into /boot it started working again, but my nic is still unrecognized.
At the time I found it quite odd that they'd make such radical changes to a well-established chipset. Now I know it's the motherboard manufacturer poisoning the bios information. I concur with the whistle-blower that this doesn't appear to be incidental. The analogy to a landmine is very telling. What on earth is their reasoning for this?
I'm exceptionally disappointed in Foxconn for pulling this stunt. The gentleman from the original post has done some very good research into this, but it's hard for me to outright condemn them and say they're in MS's pocket. That would be too ridiculous for words. But I'm still left with the question "Why did they do this?"
What really sucks is I was impressed by the quality of manufacturing and packaging. I remember thinking "I'll probably buy this brand again" and now I can't. Way to go, Foxconn, and by extension Way to go Intel. You've burned a solid customer here.
I should also mention that Foxconn is the brand that manufactures iPhones and possibly other Apple hardware.
checking for libvirus... no
ERROR, libvirus.so not found, terminating
You can indeed do this already, however the Microsoft DSDT response is not more likely to be accurate or complete either. There is in fact some likelihood that it could be more incomplete due to software based hardware drivers that run within windows taking the place of what used to be in bios.
Non sequitur: Your facts are uncoordinated.
ACPI is such an absurd feature for a computer. It is quite frequently THE source of many problems. And clearly from this case it makes it easy for a manufacturer to abuse. And they are not the first. I found a machine (or rather the sysadmin at my previous job got me a machine) from HP that would not boot up Fedora, Debian, or Ubuntu due to ACPI crap.
A great many of the features ACPI provides would not even be needed if there was no tendency on manufacturers to keep changing things (e.g. making a moving target for developers of any OS). A standardized computer design would need very little configuration information passed to the OS. And what it would need could be passed to the OS by the actual devices themselves which would be at specific locations the OS can always find (a finite set of device addresses with registers in each device that reveals what device it is).
A whole re-design of the PC to clean up the mess is needed. Nothing can be added on top to fix it. It needs a "start over". But this thread is not the place for me to describe what really needs to be done to make a robust computer system that lets any OS work on any makers machine (but of course, Microsoft would not want that).
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Foxconn also makes components for the XBox 360. Perhaps just a coincidence?
As a certified Vista product manufacturer, Foxconn gets free advertising of their products on the Windows Marketplace and elsewhere. I'm not certain, but it's likely they also get part of their own marketing financed by Microsoft when they mention that they are certified and recommend Windows in their product ads.
Intel does (or at least used to ) this with PC manufacturers. The "Intel Inside" mini-ads within PC ads meant that a PC manufacturer could send part of the commercial bill to Intel. Intel at some points allowed only companies that sold Intel and not AMD to use the "Intel Inside" marketing even for machines that did have Intel chips in them.
As anticompetitive as Microsoft is, would it be shocking to find that they're abusing their marketing incentive program? Steve Ballmer has been raving this week about battling Apple because they have a whole 8% hardware share, some of which runs Windows under Parallels or Boot Camp. They've been known to tell PC builders that they must pay for a Windows copy for every PC they sell in order to sell Windows preinstalled at all, effectively killing preload deals for other OSes. They have an official policy of spreading FUD about Linux. Why wouldn't this be a natural step for them -- paying somebody off to make sure only their latest Windows version really works correctly with the hardware?
I have a Foxconn C51XEM2AA nForce 590 board that works fine with Linux. However, this board lacks a 12V power sensor, so I stopped using it for my main workstation. I'm interested now in seeing if Linux spews any errors on it...
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
In the US you don't have many consumer protections.
So you'll have to pay to send the M/B back and fight the idea that you have to pay a restocking fee.
And still buy a new MB.
ACPI Compliance = ACPI Compliance
There's no runner-up prize. It shouldn't matter what software you use.
The poster on the Ubuntu forums seems to think that this is a case of deliberate sabotage.
What's the value of information that you don't know?
I'm a complete douchebag that has absolutely nothing to give to society. I don't even know why I'm replying to your comment. In fact, the only reason that I'm here is that the tween board that I surf regularly is down, and I've been kicked off of Digg for posting six month old stories with titles like "OMG Linux R00l3s!
My daddy never hugged me.
Fixed THAT for you, you irreverent jerk. Fuck off and die.
Are you going to to kill me by throwing a chair at me, Steve Ballmer?
Here you go.
No wait, that's not quite right...
Seagate does not support Linux, either. I discovered this when I tried to make a Seagate external USB portable hard drive work. When this drive spins down to save energy, it does NOT obey standard USB commands to reactivate. It should just reactiveate when the next command is given, and perform that command slightly delayed when the drive is up to speed (a few seconds at most). The Maxtor and Western Digital drives do this just fine. An older Seagate drive also does this just fine. It is the newer (as of 2007) drives that fail. Seagate technical support simply says "We do not support Linux". Sounds like another Microsoft payoff, and another needed Justice Department investigation, to me.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
It doesn't matter. Their stuff is junk anyway. Buy from someone else.
Some Linux-weenie thought this would be a good way to get hardware manufacturers to respect them, right? Wrong. This is childish whining. OK, so the BIOS that comes with the motherboard is defective. The board manufacturer almost certainly did not write the BIOS - they bought it. You may never find out where the BIOS came from. Gosh, I think this means the alternative is to declare this motherboard "not certified for Linux" and move on. The manufacturer certainly did.
Again, I seriously question why it is a good thing for Linux to be able to be detected by the BIOS for ACPI purposes and separated from Windows versions. This seems like a trap in the long run.
the solution is to take this to the attorney general and let them have a looksie. I would also suggest that it goes to a couple of the states that have a hard line with MS. Currently, the feds really do not care what MS does, so I will guess that they will look the other way (but it should still go to them).
Beyond that, yeah, we should start listing ALL the boards and products of Foxconn and quit buying them. Apple little system? Gone. HP's , etc. Quit buying thenm and then I think that foxconn will reconsider how good the deal with MS is.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
They can join PC Chips, S3, HP / Compaq & Hitachi in the list of hardware I won't buy.
There is a war going on for your mind.
That would explain the problems I had booting Knoppix, and later Ubuntu live, on some HP machines (my dad's desktop, my friend's laptop).
Somewhat embarrassing to say, "Watch this!" and stick in a Linux live CD and have it hang. I never imagined it would be because some MoBo maker specifically detecting for Linux and then sending it down the garbage chute.
I'm unlikely to buy a motherboard by itself, but if I buy a desktop or laptop, what other brand name products are FoxConn's mobo's hiding inside?
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]
If it can be proven, both Microsoft and Foxconn are in big trouble. It would seem to me Microsoft is directly sabotaging one of it's product's competitors. If only the reward to Foxconn could traced back.
Since there are quite some commercial distributions of Linux, they could complain with the EU over Microsoft's continued monopoly abuse and even blatant sabotage of competitors. The EU will very likely investigate it and start taking measures against Microsoft (and in a lesser degree Foxconn).
Some positive results might come out of this (Microsoft getting an even worse fine, or even better: getting barred from the Eurepean market, and Foxconn being told to avoid bribes in the future).
People always say not to attribute to malice that which can be attributed to ignorance. After reading all of the communication between Ryan and Foxconn, I'd just like to add another popular saying: You can't fix stupid.
My email to FOXCONN:
After reading this: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=869249 I am appalled at the responses attributed to your company to a serious complaint about defective DSDT tables in your ACPI implementation in the BIOS of the above-mentioned motherboard.
I agree with the premise of this article that it sure looks like the defect is intentional. Foxconn's alleged responses do nothing but reinforce that suspicion in my mind. Whether that is the case or not, Foxconn's responses (if accurately represented in the article - if not please email me with your side of the story) are unacceptable to me.
A customer of yours finds a defect, troubleshoots it on his own, and offers you all the information you need to fix it, and you respond with contempt, disrespect, and dismissal? Not good business practice! Unless you can convince me otherwise, from now on FOXCONN is synonynous with "Linux incompatible" and, as a Linux user, I will be boycotting all FOXCONN products and encouraging others to do the same.
Have a nice day!
Stan D. Freeman
freeman@maininator.com
Phase 1. Sabotage any attempts of booting the Linux kernel on your hardware.
Phase 2. ?
Phase 3. Profit
I'd get mad about this and take offense and all that, but I've never heard of Foxxcon anyways. They're insignificant and if they want to pour their own cement shoes then I'll be happy to let them.
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
Regardless of the vendor, DSDT tables for Windows are always the most tested path.
This is why the OpenBSD ACPI code disguises as Windows.
{{.sig}}
I'm willing to accept that the BIOS was mere incompetence, but the customer service is actively malicious. This is totally unprofessional, and the people responsible should be fired.
There's no failure quite as dissatisfying as a complete and total solution to the wrong problem.
Return the Mobo. Obviously Foxconn does not have the best interest of the general public in mind.
I can only assume that everyone that read this article will automatically boycott Foxconn products, and after they see all the internet chatter and notice the decrease in sales, they will opt to fix the bios issue and make their products more linux friendly.
In short, lets stop buying from Foxconn.
"The one for Linux points to a badly written table that does not correspond to the board's ACPI implementation"
If 'it doesn't support Linux' then why does the BIOS have a table exclusively for Linux, who designed it and why does it write to a badly written table, and what does the Microsoft Linux Lab make of it.
davecb5620@gmail.com
No company in their right mind wants to exclude a potential sale unless there is money to be made elsewhere from that exclusion.
Not true. A very common reason for excluding sales from a certain market segment is that "cost of sales/development" or "cost of support" is too high to make the sale profitable.
If "doing the job right" costs too much for penny-pinching bean counters, then it's very conceivable that buggy Linux-related code was let out into the wild.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Foxconn:" It has been marketed as a Microsoft Certified Motherboard for their operating systems
Me:" I've found separate DSDT tables that the BIOS hands to Linux specifically, changing it to point to the DSDT tables Vista gets fixes all Linux issues with this board
Why does the VISTA table work with Linux? Since when does a motherboard have to be hacked to run on a particualr OS instead of the other way round.
davecb5620@gmail.com
"Unknown MB manufacturer makes cards that fail on Linux" Ok... I could panic, send angry letters, etc. Or, I could return it "sorry, it wasn't stated Linux is not supported, I am returning the card in order to buy another brand" ... Really, what's wrong with these people? <- I mean, the guy at ubuntuforums and the ones writing the emails...
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
Certainly a valid point. In my mind that reason was already excluded as they were only declaring Windows compatibility. So long as they don't declare Linux compatible, they have nothing extra to support. Which is why it's so odd. After all, Linux users already understand this which means they are purposely refusing sales where they are already more likely to have a lower cost to support.
Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity.
'One thing I find myself wondering about is whether we shouldn't try and make the "ACPI" extensions somehow Windows specific. It seems unfortunate if we do this work and get our partners to do the work and the results is that Linux works great without having to do the work. Maybe there is no way to avoid this problem but it does bother me. Maybe we could define the APIs so that they work well with NT and not the others even if they are open. Or maybe we could patent something related to this'
davecb5620@gmail.com
'"it works on Windows" is not enough to claim ACPI compatibility'
.. dumass .. ;)
...
It works on Microsoft ACPI
'One thing I find myself wondering about is whether we shouldn't try and make the "ACPI" extensions somehow Windows specific'
übersoft.net
davecb5620@gmail.com
Can anyone tell me why twitter is being modded troll here?
Twitter is repeating the "M$ sabotaged ACPI" lie, as he does every damn time the subject comes up, still hoping that it will magically come true. That's why he was modded Troll.
if they want to barr themselves from 13,6% of the server-market...
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
...is that the BIOS returns different addresses for the ACPI access points, depending on what Operating System is making the function call?
How exactly does the BIOS determine what operating system is making the function call to the BIOS?
I call extreme Bull Shit on this one.
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
His argument that ACPI was "sabotaged" has been debunked again and again, and even if true in the context that he claims it was, it would have no bearing whatsoever in what a motherboard vendor does or doesn't do with it, to the detriment of Linux or otherwise. This problem is a misleading entry in a value table, which when corrected leads to Linux power management working again when hacked. That alone pretty much invalidates his sabotage claim.
Again, even if true, his link would have absolutely nothing to do whatsoever with the topic at hand.
Offtopic would have probably been more appropiate, but troll is OK. Maybe that will stop him from using his incorrect and misleading journal entries to support his arguments. There are even comments on that JE that disprove his so-called theory.
Or maybe it was the links to Roy Schestowitz's annoying attack blog, who is another FUDster and Digg's equivalent to twitter.
Or maybe he's being modded down for organizing shitstorms like these with his sockpuppets.
Either way...
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
http://antitrust.slated.org/www.iowaconsumercase.org/011607/3000/PX03020.pdf (PDF)
The Better Business Bureau is one place to start. They deal with false advertising claims (among others). In the UK, this may be a criminal offense.
I have had bad experiences with HP desktops trying to run Linux, so I too will not buy from HP.
What is the reason you won't buy from the other companies in your list? Is it poor quality, poor service, or a different principle?
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]
Stop posting using the monospaced font ("code" setting), unless you are posting code. It's fucking annoying.
...when malice exists.
Here, it exists, period. When they have enough information to fix the problem easily(in cost), but make a defense(and waste their time defending a bug), it is malice.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Isn't that false advertisement?
They say too many choices can have a paralyzing effect. They've effectively sabotaging ACPI support for Linux in their products. As a result, they've effectively made our choice of motherboard manufacturer that much simpler by removing themselves as an option.
Should they eventually go out of business as a result of this particular faux pas, I imagine I will feel exactly the same way as when Packard Bell dropped out of the PC OEM industry. That is, grateful they never got their act together, because they really sucked ass anyway.
Sorta reminds me of the AARD code. Not exactly the same, but the concept is eerily similar.
Yes twitter, this is the correct time to be worried. It's that weirdest of moments when you feel your balls are in your throat because you realize you fucked up, just like I predicted you would.
Soon willyhill will comeback, and I have no doubt he'll be updating his journal. You've been a busy troll these past few weeks. That post is really just one of many things, some of which are not even on Slashdot to be linked to but will emerge soon.
Then people will be able to make up their minds about it, and not take my word for anything. Or yours.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
I won't be buying Foxconn, not even if I'm building a Windoze box.
Tech Public Policy stuff
"Hold on. You have to slow down. You're losing it. You have to take a breath. Listen to yourself. You're connecting a computer bug I had with a computer bug you might have had and some religious hogwash. You want to find the number 216 in the world, you will be able to find it everywhere. 216 steps from a mere street corner to your front door. 216 seconds you spend riding on the elevator. When your mind becomes obsessed with anything, you will filter everything else out and find that thing everywhere."
Er, young mindless AC, it should be pointed out that people sitting in basements playing usually have "Wintendo" installed, not Linux which is for smart people.
I'm currently in the process of qualifying a mobo or mobos for a project. Thank you for making my job easier. One less to consider.
An effective "democracy" creates the illusion the people have a say in their government.
I find your ideas intriguing and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
In the past few minutes, the UK technical manager for Foxconn has posted on ubuntuforums.
He sounds genuinely sorry, and says that the bios will be fixed next week, and they will look into their testing procedures.
It looks like maybe OP just had the bad luck of getting a support person who didn't know enough to pass him up to another support level.
They deserve it. Lawyers, good for something at last.
Foxconn makes the Xbox X-clamp. That famous piece of (crap) component which fails to hold the heat sinks in a way on the processor in a way that it does not overheat and melt off the circuit board.
Yes, it is also bad design with too much heat in a too small box... but the xclamp is definitely a piece of trash.....
Keywords are rrod xbox, xclamp xbox ....
Yeah, so foxconn is a name I will now double remember, and MS hardware went to the same place where I put the software a long time ago. I am just pissed that I had to re-purchase all the online games I play for the PS3. Hope that does not have any Foxconn crap in it...
because foxconn boards are everywhere.
if you buy a pre-built computer from dell or hp etc 9 times out of 10 it's a foxconn board.
N/T
Foxconn isn't the only one with faulty DSDTs -- and this is one place where Linux can hardly be blamed when something is specifically claiming to support Linux -- and hey, here's the code for it! -- but the Linux version is faulty, while the Windows version is fine.
I've fixed at least one problem by literally pasting DSDT code from one of the Windows sections to the Linux section.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
...you expected a Foxconn board to work flawlessly? I think the purchaser is as flawed as the bios in question. (just kidding) Foxconn = cheap. That's it. You get what you pay for, which means they work sometimes, but if you want a good board get an ASUS or DFI, or at least a Biostar or Gigabyte or something. I've had luck with ECS MBs for budget boards but I don't expect too much from them, since they are budget products, period. Some of the cheaper brands may be engineered and built well enough, but the BIOS options and updates are always lacking.
Even though it may appear that they are specifically targeting Linux with a broken file, it's far more likely that it's an innocent mistake: they could very easily have taken the DSDT data from another board they produce, copied it, and then made the modifications required to make Vista and XP work. The Linux support included in the old board would then still be included, even though no effort had been made to ensure it functions properly.
It's a shame that they left it in there, but I really don't think there's a conspiracy with Microsoft regarding this.
OMG? You ride the bus? I get that all the time.
Pwnd! :-P
I'll don't buy Foxconn products
I've read some people replying "oh, just get something else". BULLSHIT! If its certified to go according to engineering specs, then it is. There is no 'microsoft certification authority' here. They have no authority over consumer products manufactured and sold anywhere. If their products do not meet standards, whether electrical, physical or functional, then their product(s) should be pulled from national/international sale. And I mean not allowed to sell here, there or anywhere, till specs are not met. In this case, they went out of their way to fuck linux users over. I am filing with the EU anti-trust board over microsoft and its collusion with Foxconn, the federal trade commission, and am considering a class action suit against them (and looking for others who may have already done so, so that I may join them). Am I stoked? YOU BET! Wanna debate the issue? Let me start with this statement: SEE YOU IN COURT!
While I'm quite happy to lamb-baste Foxconn for this shit, the happy-happy joy-joy I'm looking for is: the next one to be found out. Buddy gave pretty clear directions on ripping the guts out of your bios and poking at the innards. If your bios was 'tweaked' by the manufacturer to microsofts favor (and against you, if you run Linux), then it will be more easily found out. I'm waiting for the next one. The tools are now more exposed. I'm also very happy that the European Anti-trust folk are already involved.
the hell is foxconn?
While not quite as extreme as the Foxconn motherboard issue noted above, I have run into Linux a nasty gotcha with an ASUS motherboard. Below is an e-mail I sent to the ASUS staff I have dealt with over the last while, going over the issues I have had, and if anyone can supply me with the e-mail (or postal) addresses of senior staff at ASUS I would appreciate it...
-=-=-
Dear Kara Renner, Elijah Alexander and Blanca Ortiz;
This e-mail is to note and explain my current unhappiness with the experiences I have had with purchase of one of your M2N-MX SE PLUS motherboards. I have normally been happy with ASUS products, something I have been very willing to note in publications I have written for, such as www.linuxjournal.com/article/8219 .
Before purchasing the M2N-MX SE PLUS motherboard I did take the precaution of reading the motherboard manual to make sure it supported net booting, and according to your documentation it does.
After purchase it took me some time and effort to determine why this new machine would not net boot. The diagnose process did include downloading and installing the latest available BIOS. In the end the issue turned out to be a multicast MAC address burned into the motherboard. This multicast MAC address makes successful net booting out of the question. Having determined why the motherboard would not work, I called your firm, obtained an RMA number (EL864256) and I shipped the defective motherboard to your facility in Indiana (this in spite of the fact that your Canadian office is less than a 1 hour drive from my home). The motherboard was then returned to me, apparently untouched, as the MAC address on the motherboard had been not been changed. Further a secondary issue of concern, noted in the cover letter included with the motherboard, a BIOS bug, "MCFG area at e0000000 is not E-820-reserved" was not touched.
Further telephone complaints triggered the shipping of a replacement BIOS ROM, which by the time it arrived at my location had be knocked around in transit. After some effort, bending pins I was able to install the ROM, but found that the motherboard would not even get to the POST messages after this change. Returning to the original BIOS ROM would at least allow the motherboard to display the POST messages.
Additional calls resulted in my obtaining a second RMA number (2EL874667) and the shipping the motherboard yet again to your office in Indiana. This time I trust the motherboard will be repaired or replaced with a AMD AM2+ supporting microATX motherboard that does actually work.
Going forward, regardless as to the result of this latest repair effort, this motherboard is a complete and total failure.
My goal with this motherboard was to build a prototype basic "dumb" remote multimedia terminal that could be inexpensively, quickly built in significant numbers. For inexpensive, we are talking over $95, $55 for the motherboard, then over $40 for shipping multiple times to your office, plus a number dollars for incidental costs like long distance phone calls. The M2N-MX SE PLUS motherboard compares very badly against your competitors in the $95 price range. In terms of time, this is not a system that can be assembled quickly. Not only have I had to spend significant amounts of time assembling / disassembling a PC around this motherboard. I have also had to spend time troubleshooting, packing / unpacking and waiting for the repair. I am now looking a minimum of about two months between purchase and being able to actually use this motherboard, a figure I do not have the time to repeat. In other words, this is a prototype I can not repeat. I will have to look to another motherboard, most likely from another manufacture, to achieve my original goals.
You can assume this is the last M2N-MX SE PLUS motherboard I will purchase, and may be the last ASUS product I will ever purchase. You can also assume that I will passing word of my poor experiences on via a number of routes, my writing, my presentations before local user groups and the mailing lists / web forms to which I belong. This way the people I know or come in contact with will not make the same purchasing error I made.
Sincerely,
Colin McGregor
Being from Europe I don't know whether that's the right addressee for US citizens, but the guy himself reported to the Federal Trade Commission and filed a complaint.
Just read his posting on the Ubuntu forums, it's all there.
Because most moderators think that "troll" means "stupid". And in fact, Twitter is not extremely bright. The idea that ACPI is designed to sabotage Linux is absurd. His "evidence" is Linus's statement that it's a bad protocol and some ambiguous email from a former Microsofter.
I work for the x64 group at Sun. We support ACPI on Red Hat Linux, SUSE Linux, and Solaris. (And Windows, though I shouldn't mention it, since this is "proof" that we're part of the conspiracy.) If there's sabotage of non-Windows systems via this technology, none of our customers has thought to mention it to us.
There are Foxxcon components in most motherboards of today. Asus, and XFX uses them, and probarbly a few more. So why not just run your comp without a motherboard to fully support Linux? Show your dedication now...
Can't you just disable that crap in the kernel anyway?
It's not like it's useful in any way, shape or form.
I used CygWin {...} You get used to having BASH on windows pretty quickly.
Cygwin (and also MinGW MSYS - not a full blown POSIX layer as Cygwin, but just the bare minimum necessary to run automake and friends)
both provide an application called RXVT which provide a nice terminal window in which to run your favorite BASH, instead of Windows' default terminal window.
Unlike the Microsoft's joke, RXVT provide a fully functional terminal, with decent support of scroll back buffer, and fast on-mouse-button copy and paste which supports multi line selection.
RXVT's the ideal complement to BASH for all use command-line freaks.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I presently use my Foxconn motherboard with a Linux only PC. If Foxconn does not support Linux in the future, I will not be buying any Foxconn products in the future.
Dear Joe: Thank you for taking the time to make us aware of the situation and also suggestions. Foxconn has no intention to reject Linux. As we all know that Linux is an open source system and there are various flavors available in the market, and that is why we could not perform the specific function tests on every version of Linux. However, we do have tested some Linux systems previously. As for the Linux issue, our FAE team is working on this issue and hopefully it can be resolved soon. So if you have bought any retail Foxconn motherboards and got this issue please email us your system configuration and problem descriptions. We will be happy to look into it. Again, we apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused.
------
We do have tested? Not much point in getting technical with the tech support line, but hopefully if they get a few thousand pings on this the message will sink in.