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."

Comments

So what?

[fitten]

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".

Re:So what?

[nomadic]

The problem is that Foxconn says its ACPI compliant but its not.

Just like Linux! I guess they have some things in common.

and so it starts the war aganist freedom

[segagman]

i have seen this coming the war against freedom of thought and sharing ...were dose it end?

Re:ONE user reporting "weird kernel errors"

[Anonymous Coward]

I was playing "uninformed jackass"... you have to look at the problem from the motherboard manufacturer's point of view.

fixed that for ya

Re:An the solution is....

[amorsen]

Both HP and Dell make a number of Linux systems and if foxconn have such an attitude towards linux support, it's likely their orders from hp/dell will decrease...

BIOS programming is the lowest programming job there is. It's where those people too dumb to handle a call center end up. HP BIOS's aren't any better.