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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
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
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 :\
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.
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.
The trouble here isn't that it doesn't support Linux, it's that the motherboard appears to be actively sabotaging Linux. That's a really weird thing to do and deserves investigation.
The problem is that Foxconn says its ACPI compliant but its not. It also looks as if they botched Linux by pure purpouse. Why on earth would they have a Linux section in the bios when they dont support it? Something is very smelly here thats for sure. I will keep miles away from Foxconn at my departments no matter if my systems are intended for Windows or Linux.
HTTP/1.1 400
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".
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?
They shouldn't be discriminating against different OSes. Foxconn is deliberately providing Linux with a faulty ACPI implementation rather than simply just following the spec. If they followed the spec, then they wouldn't have to worry about supporting Linux since it would be up to Linux to follow ACPI rules.
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.
They are free to choose what platforms to support but, in this case they choose to have a broken bios with a table specifically for Linux that was broken. In this case it look as if they worked on getting it to not function properly. It really makes you wonder.
HTTP/1.1 400
No, actually.
File this under having done the world a service by publishing their findings.
Now we know that at least some Foxconn motherboards do not work with Linux, and Foxconn is not interested in doing anything about that. That's useful information.
From other posts, I gather that the motherboard actually has a table specifically targeted at Linux, which supplies broken settings. So it's more than Foxconn simply not supporting Linux; they've actually gone and broken things.
Finally, it seems there is already a workaround available. I guess Linux is willing to support Foxconn, even if Foxconn doesn't want it to. And, really, this is a case of "yay, open source!"
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Foxconn has no obligation to support
They went out of their way and expended extra effort to prevent Linux from working on their system. This moved beyond "not supporting", to "breaking" hardware that should have functioned without any effort at all on foxconns part, using what was probably considerable effort on their part to detect what kernel was booting, then developing a fake ACPI table to show only when it detected linux.
The interesting part is that a year or so back, there was an article here about how Microsoft floated a letter around manufacturers asking how to make ACPI harder for Linux to implement. Everyone asserted that we were just paranoid and the only reason ACPI was hard for Linux was because "Linux developers suck", but now it seems we know.
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.
Foxconn isn't exactly a no-name MoBo manufacturer. In fact, you'll find a foxconn board in most gateways, dells, compaqs, HPs, and (yechh) eMachines.
This isn't Foxconn not supporting Linux, this is a motherboard advertised/displayed as 'ACPI' compliant when it isn't. The whole point about standards, as I understand them, is that a manufacturer doesn't have to support any specific product, simply comply to a standard and let all/any products comply to the same standard.
The user may not have done much research but he shouldn't have to with a motherboard, just check the MoBo complies to the standards and spec you need and that should be enough.
File this under "False advertising/Fraud" (I'm never quite sure where the distinction is. Especially outside the UK)
If this were really happening, what would you think?
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.
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!
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
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..)
> 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?
Nope. Let's get you straightened out.
The BIOS provides two sets of ACPI tables; one good, working and one which isn't even intended to work. It checks what OS string the kernel hands it when it boots. If Windows, it sends the good tables. If Linux, it sends the deliberately faulty ones.
The more you know!
25% Funny, 25% Insightful, 25% Informative, 25% Troll
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.
Foxconn also accuses him of making "idle treats".
I want an idle treat.
Badass Resumes
I'm sure we could get ISO to fast track a few "adjustments"
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
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!!!
If Windows, it sends the good tables. If Linux, it sends the deliberately faulty ones.
It's still more likely incompetence than conspiracy. Most motherboard manufacturers don't write their own BIOS - they buy a stock one from AMI/Award and make a few changes for their particular board.
What they most likely did was update the DSDT tables handed out to Windows to reflect their hardware, but didn't bother changing the others. So for Linux (and perhaps Win9x) it just has the generic tables that came with the BIOS, which of course don't work for their particular board.
Of course, a BIOS even having per-OS tables is indicative of poor design, since being OS-independent is kinda the whole point of ACPI. That's more of an issue with whoever wrote the BIOS in the first place, though.
While they're probably not out to actively sabotage Linux, it's still poor customer service to refuse to fix it and claim that everything is working fine. Sadly, getting most board manufacturers to fix their broken DSDT tables (and there are a lot out there) is akin to pulling teeth.
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.
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.
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 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...
"So let me get this straight."
Let's see.
"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."
You missed not just a step but the entire issue.
You have a manufacturer that provides different ACPI BIOS tables for different operative systems. They even have one explicitly tailored for Linux although the manufacturer says it doesn't support Linux. Then the ACPI BIOS table explicitly tailored for Linux is different from the Windows ones in a way that it is not only non-ACPI-compliant (though the vendor insists in certifying it as such) but even breaks in not a clear manner a Linux install.
Couple it with the fact that Microsoft, a convicted monopoly abuser, is the favoured vendor from current state of affairs and already has a proven track record of getting into agreements with OEMs and manufacturers in order to make competitors look like flawed.
It certainly took money from the vendor to reach such a state of matters. Do you really think the most probably cause to be "general profit-driven apathy"?
"Why the poster persists in sticking with such a POS board with obviously wrong BIOS is beyond me."
1) The point being here not that Foxconn produces "obviously wrong BIOS" but that Foxconn might be producing "maliciously wrong BIOS".
2) Do you really think that, in case there is in fact an unpublished agreement between Microsoft and Foxconn to make Linux look like shit the former won't look for similar agreements with other vendors/manufacturers?
3) Do you really think that, in case there is in fact non-published agreements between Microsoft and other vendors/manufacturers to make Linux look like shit, average "Joe user" (or even me, for that matter) will know the real cause to make an informed decision, as free-market theorists require as a must for a sane economic environment, unless somebody takes the time and effort to vawe the hidden facts?
4) Given the exposed arguments, do you still really think this is really "a tempest in a teacup". I do not think this is a tempest in a teacup but a very serious issue.
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.
Judging by the shoddy code, maybe Microsoft floated more than just a letter around. Perhaps code snippets?
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.
He did write a workaround/fix. RTFP (post). That's how he managed to get the system working with the Windows DSDT.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Even better, start pushing to get rid of the ancient BIOS technology altogether. It belongs to a different era. Bring on EFI in commodity mobos. If Apple can do it.......
But then it wouldn't support Windows!
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.
They went out of their way and expended extra effort to prevent Linux from working on their system.
Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
I have my doubts that Foxconn would deliberately sabotage a potential customer set--but I have no doubts whatsoever that they could try to implement Linux support, screw it up, then decide they're not going to finish. After all, their Windows support also sucks.
If you haven't been down-modded lately, you aren't trying.
Sacred cows make the best hamburger.
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.
If they didn't support Linux, and were not incompetent, they would remove the OS check altogether and just use the "Windows" table for everything. This is probably already what happens for other unsupported OSes that are not Windows or Linux, such as FreeBSD.
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.
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...
...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.
IIRC their XPS systems use the Foxconn hardware as well.
Srsly u guys. U guys, srsly.
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.
When you learn to speak proper English, then it really does end. I promise.
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?
False advertising is a subset of fraud, that is, false advertinsing is fraud, but not all fraud is false advertising.
...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.
It seems that they need to provide different tables for different operating systems. They probably have a standard one for non-Windows operating systems. It could be just that there was a mistake.
Is it just me, or does one get the image of a harassed Tech support officer under the desk in the foetal position sucking his thumb crying and trying to type out that reply...
Laters Sol "Have you found the secrets of the universe? Asked Zebade "I'm sure I left them here somewhere"
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.
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.
Maybe implying sly? As in, deceptive?
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.
That would still require effort on their part.
This is not maliciousness or incompetence, it is just laziness.
They are doing things in the cheapest, easiest way possible.
Makes me wonder about the quality of their hardware.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
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.
To prove false advertising you need only prove that an advertisement was knowingly false. To prove fraud you must also prove the specific people were swindled. The first is obviously easier.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Doesn't Foxconn make the mobos for the Mac Mini? You'd think they'd have some experience of non-MS operating systems.
I guess you didn't RFTA ....
Linux identifies itself as Windows to the BIOS. The BIOS does more careful checks to determine that it's truly Linux and not Windows, then feeds it a different table with references to bad memory addresses.
I'm more in the camp that says some programmer copied an old BIOS and didn't change any of the Linux parts, but there's certainly no "standard one for non-Windows operating systems."
Put identity in the browser.
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 believe OpenBSD would lie to the MoBo telling it it is some flavor of windows, wouldn't fail to install, and TdR wouldn't give a shit about it.
entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem
The letter mentioned above (PDF)
Put identity in the browser.
Slashdot IS an idle treat! (Or a treat for idles? or is that just in Soviet Russia?)
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).
Microsoft refuse to support booting from EFI... Vista was supposed to support it, but that was dropped. They only support it on IA64 (Itanium) because there is no other option...
Apple's machines have a backwards compatibility bios emulation mode that's used to boot windows.
Linux can boot direct from EFI, not sure how many people use this feature, and it used to only be for x86 not x86_64 but i assume that has been fixed too if only for use on 64bit macs.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
No, it allegedly has a bunch of checks for Linux strewn about in random places which then give bad data upon detecting Linux.
The only person claiming that is the original poster in that thread, whose correspondence with Foxconn and the (!) FTC is instantly accusatory and full of assumption. It's almost as if he started with the premise that Foxconn was actively breaking Linux to be anticompetitive and looked for evidence to support it.
I'd have to see a full DSDT dump to be sure, but from the excerpts posted it looks like "active checking" is just matching against _OS instead of using _OSI, which is a mistake a naive BIOS writer unfamiliar with the spec could easily make. It doesn't help the issue that Linux lies about its identity in _OSI.
The "redundant checks" seem to be present for the Windows code path too, and look more to me like bad spaghetti code copied and pasted multiple places.
I also take issue with
Find and replace all seven occurences of Acquire (MUTE, 0x03E8) and replace with Acquire (MUTE, 0xFFFF), it appears they're trying to crash the kernel by locking a region of memory that shouldn't be locked, but without access to their source code comments, I can only speculate, this tells it to lock a memory address that is always reserved instead. ;)
It's obviously not trying to crash the kernel, that's not how Acquire() works. The second parameter is a timeout, not a memory address. 3E8 hex = 1000 decimal. The BIOS writer was trying to acquire a mutex with a 1 second timeout.
Changing it to 0xFFFF makes it wait forever, which could potentially cause worse problems as execution will get stuck if the mutex is already held. Multithreaded synchronization is a very tricky problem, and I'm not surprised to see they got it wrong. Without examining the code it's impossible to say what effect TheAlmightyCthulu's changes have, if they're correct or if they merely mask the problem.
Saying they're trying to deliberately crash the kernel is a bit ridiculous.
But then again I'm a BSD guy, so I don't start out with a chip on my shoulder and assume everyone's out to get me. Have seen a ton of shoddy BIOSes in my time though.
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
Yes, but fortunately MS isn't the only partner in ACPI, and Bill Gates doesn't get the final word on it.
Look at the state of things. Intel, who did a fairly large chunk of the work on ACPI, wrote the reference interpreter. Intel's interpreter is what is used in Linux, FreeBSD, and several other operating systems. Intel periodically releases updates and fixes to make sure that it correctly supports the published ACPI specification.
MS has their own hacked together interpreter that's fairly broken. The only MS-specific ACPI extensions I know of are implemented in separate tables like WHEA, and not in the DSDT.
The bottom line are, BIOS writers are lazy and often the tables they produce don't meet the ACPI specification. If it boots windows, it's good enough and it goes out the door. I'm all for campaigning for standards support, but making unfounded accusations and attacking their support reps isn't the way to do it.
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?
That's Windows' problem.
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
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?
That would still require effort on their part.
Que?
Whoever wrote the BIOS put out a great deal of effort, as their BIOS apparently goes beyond accepting the identifier given by the OS (At least as of January, Linux identifies as "Microsoft Windows NT" after a brief bout of identifying as "Linux" and breaking a lot of BIOSes that flipped out when they couldn't recognize the OS) to some other nonstandard method that is capable of identifying Linux even if Linux identifies itself to the BIOS as Windows.
That's not lazy. Nor is it incompetent.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
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
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?
For reference, here is Bill Gates' email asking how they can make ACPI incompatible with Linux.
Far be it from me to defend these bozos, but there are a couple nuances to keep in mind. First, they probably didn't write the BIOS. Second, it's quite possible that the BIOS code started out being wrong for all systems and was later fixed only for Vista since that's where the problem was detected and some moron didn't feel like fully testing the fix. In that case the poor quality was due to incompetence, not solely malice.
Not an excuse for shoddy products in any way. But I find it hard to believe that they would actively expend effort to sabotage Linux. Hardware makers are all about razor-thin margins, and I just don't see them spending money on something like that. Far more likely someone's just doing half-assed maintenance of the BIOS code.
Get your teeth into a small slice: the cake of liberty
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
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.
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}}
Avoid a company that acts stupidly? Amen!
But, as others have pointed out, Foxconn is a huge player in electronics manufacturing. Is Joe Schmoe User (or even Jim Schmim Geek-with-a-clue) going to be able to completely avoid Foxconn-manufactured goods?
If you haven't been down-modded lately, you aren't trying.
Sacred cows make the best hamburger.
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.
"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.
'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?
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)
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]
...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.
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
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.
Coincidentally I did some repartitioning on my other machine today, in preparation for installing Linux. This makes me think again, but I'll probably give it a go anyway, just to see if it dies a horrible death or not.
Regardless of whether it works or not, I won't be buying from Foxconn again. (Technically I didn't in the first place as the machine was donated (I seem to be another 'trash can' to some - 'computery stuff' as compared with paper, glass, garden waste...), but that's besides the point).
"Three eyes are better than one" -- Lieutenant Columbo
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.
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.
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!
Obviously I was in too much of a rush here and completely forgot to say the machine has a Foxconn motherboard. D'oh!
"Three eyes are better than one" -- Lieutenant Columbo
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
"My original point about the article was that there was zero proof that Microsoft paid Foxconn."
So what? Police wouldn't ever start an investigation following your criteria:
-Humm... Mr. Capone seems suspicious; let's investigate him
-But you have zero proof about Mr. Capone!
-Yeah, but there's enough to make us suspicious; that's why we should investigate him
-But you have zero proof
-You are right; I'm convinced; let's do not investigate.
Is there zero proof about Foxconn? Yeah right, but there are enough facts to become quite suspicious about its behaviour.
"But the coup de grace is that you come along and make the EXACT same mistake - having absolutely no proof"
Maybe your problem is you don't understand English language. Certainly you don't understand what a conditional statement is.
"The underlying issue here is a cultural one: a naively simple "us vs. them""
"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."
Bullshit. This has nothing to do with "technology platforms" nor I'm running this off pure emotion. This is more about "them", big greedy corporations and the way our current legal and social system allows them to go their way, vs "us" average citizens and the way "we" need to be active regarding such abuses. On this general framework this is a particular case that certainly is very serious and demands further investigation. It is as serious as the case itself that people like you find it "bussiness as usual". Your assertion "We just don't know, and if you don't know for sure, it is better to keep your mouth shut" just goes from serious to plainly stupid. Surely corporations like Microsoft will be delighted with people like you -for one they never would have gone through a monopoly abuse case... and lost, since, hey, before the trial noone knew for sure, so better we do nothing.
"In short, crappy mobo manufacturer makes crappy BIOS and then doesn't want to support small operating system thus it MUST be a conspiracy!"
Surely you have problems understanding English language. Maybe it's not your mother language or something like this. Anyway, here comes a hint: When I say in my previous post "The point being here not that Foxconn produces "obviously wrong BIOS" but that Foxconn might be producing "maliciously wrong BIOS"" you should understand that "MIGHT" is not the same as "MUST"; I think any dictionary will show you the differences.
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
When Foxconn acts as a contract manufacturer for the likes of Apple or HP, you can bet that their output has to pass test procedures designed by the company selling the goods, so I worry less about the stuff they make for others and more about the company that is selling the goods.
It's clear that their own products' QA is lacking and their front line support people are ill-trained.
-- All that's left of me, is slight insanity, whats on the right, I don't know. -- Bob Mould
They went out of their way and expended extra effort to prevent Linux from working on their system.
I doubt the issue is active malice from Foxconn (trade name for Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. LTD ).
Usually the way BIOS gets done is the mfg. buys a kit from Phoenix or General Software or whomever, and they run a customization program (which super-IO chip, what flash, you want to allow clocking modifiers, a zillion other options) and maybe add a few specific files for their setup and then compile an image.
I'm willing to bet that some firmware engineer was under the gun to crank out a release. He skipped over the section for configuring ACPI for anything but windows and some bogus defaults were left in a config file somewhere. They got compiled into the image.
QA says "what do we have to test?", marketing says "windows xp and vista", and they go ahead and test that by playing solitaire and minesweeper. They ship to make their quarterly number. The customer e-mails, support handles it badly, blogs are posted, and slashdotting ensues.
-- All that's left of me, is slight insanity, whats on the right, I don't know. -- Bob Mould
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.
Just a few days ago while browsing through mobos offered at newegg, I had the very same question.
Scott
©20014 angrykeyboarder & Elmer Fudd. All Wights Wesewved
I've got an ASUS A8V Deluxe mobo and it's crap.
I'll only buy from ASUS again if I can't be truly convinced that there are better options out there.
Oh yeah.... ASUS support sucks ass.
Scott
©20014 angrykeyboarder & Elmer Fudd. All Wights Wesewved
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.