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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."

7 of 696 comments (clear)

  1. Homework by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Alternatively do your homework before you go out and by a motherboard.

    The manufacturer has no responsibilty to help unless they specifically advertise that the board works with linux.

  2. unbelievable by Stonefred · · Score: 1, Troll

    best example for modern fascism

  3. Another angry linux fanatic. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Simple solution just buy another mother board. this guy needs to get laid.

  4. Re:Fine. Won't use them for Windows either. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Wooo....as if we actually give a shit fucktard. Go back to mommies basement and play now.

  5. Re:An the solution is.... by Kamokazi · · Score: 1, Troll

    That's because any idiot can load Firefox onto a Windows computer. Linux is a little bit trickier, especially after the install. Even with more user-friendly distros, at some point the command line gets involved, and you can't expect Grandma Maybel to use it.

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  6. Re:An the solution is.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Yay Slashdot - an anecdotal argument that adds nothing to the discussion, but it's pro-Linux so +5 Insightful. How very sadly typical.

    I would waste a point on you just to show that I, if no one else, understands this fact, but nothing will ever get through to zealots anyway.

  7. The story of APCI: Defective by Design. by twitter · · Score: -1, Troll

    ACPI was designed to harm free software, so this is not surprising. M$ will continue to lay mines like this as long as makers are willing to sell their reputation or fail to guard it with proper QA.

    Until there are cheap motherboards with free BIOS, free software users will have to research carefully or test hardware before they buy it. Thanks to Social Network Poisoning and corporate moles, research is harder to do than it once was.

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    Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.