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Foxconn Releases Test BIOS Fixing Linux Crashes
Ryan1984 writes "Only a week after the bad press coverage regarding the Linux-related bugs in a number of motherboards released by Foxconn (which turned out to be the AMI BIOS that several board makers use), Foxconn is the first vendor out with a publicly released test patch that fixes the bulk of the problems, allowing kernel 2.6.26 to run well on the afflicted boards. The remaining issues appear to either be kernel bugs in builds earlier than 2.6.26, issues with the Intel chipset itself, or minor annoyances that Foxconn is still working to resolve. Foxconn representative Heart Zhang has posted on the Ubuntu forums (where the situation began), apologizing for the issues, thanking Foxconn customers and the community at-large for their feedback, and promising that Foxconn will take Linux support and testing seriously, going forward."
This is very clever sabotage. Now Foxconn is trying to convince Linux users that we should rush out and buy from them.
Once we build all our rigs with Foxconn motherboards, they trigger the new dormant BIOS bug that destroys all Linux systems.
The only way to repair the BIOS at that point will be a patch that can only be installed from Microsoft BOB, and will come shipped in a shrink-wrapped CD case that can only be opened by throwing a chair at it.
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Wait, Slashdot told me that Foxconn was in the hole for Microsoft, purposely sabotaging Linux so Windows can live on! But now they're releasing a fix?
Finish reading the summary:
(which turned out to be the AMI BIOS that several board makers use)
{"TinfoilHat":" // I've had it with XML jokes -- this one's JSON.
It looks like the AMI BIOS manufacturer is the one who's really purposely sabotaging Linux.
"}
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
This whole soap opera, which probably had more to do with copy and paste laziness than conspiracy theories, blew up out of proportions and gave Foxconn a lot of reasons to believe that Linux users are crazy zealots. Yes, I know that the users who actually harassed Foxconn with "OMG microsoft payed you!!!" emails are just a small part of the Linux userbase, but I'd kinda understand if Foxconn took Linux less seriously after that.
The fact that they're now going as far as writing about the patch in the Ubuntu Forums shows that they consider the Linux userbase large and important enough to be worried about the bad press, even though most of the "bad press" was grossly exaggerated. Not-so-many years ago, a company could dismiss the complaints as "nonsense zealotry" with no worries and no financial negative impact whatsoever. Foxcoon seems to believe that this is not the case now.
So, from a "relevance of Linux nowadays" point of view, I consider this to be a very good sign.
I've said this before about ATI: When you get a bunch of angry people together and complain about a product, you typically get the results you want.
No company wants to look bad, even to a minority of people. Because it often only takes a minority of people to completely trash a companies reputation, especially in such a competitive market like motherboards.
So if you know of any other manufacturers who have poor Linux support, don't be scared to send them a letter about it and to tell other people who use Linux about your problems with the manufacturer. You might end up afflicting positive change in the long run.
Quotes from the article:
So not just in this one high publicity case, but on all of their motherboards.
I would say you got what you want here. Time will tell.
I'd say they got this one done too. That's pretty public.
Yes, it's lame that it was broken but now it's fixed. One week is pretty quick for a BIOS revision spin. Maybe it's OK to cut them some slack on this one now.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
"But now they're releasing a fix? That's not sabotage!"
Foxconn got caught and was called front-and-center over it. The evidence is overwhelmingly against them (the sabotage is plainly visible in their own code), so they realize the jig is up. The only rational response, after all the denials failed, is to provide a fix and hope the exposure fades away.
The sabotage doesn't necessarily have to be an explicit agreement between Foxconn and Microsoft, but it was certainly intentional on Foxconn's part. The code that said, essentially, "If Windows, do things right; if Linux, do things wrong" was not an accident. The question of who at Foxconn made the decision to perform the sabotage may never be known, but it was done consciously by someone at Foxconn (for whatever reason).
these guys really didn't have to EVER fix this, much less a week later. if all hardware manufacturers were this responsive the world of technology would be a better place.
Obama is a twitter sock puppet
use freedos...
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Foxconn is probably just doing this to avoid negative publicity, despite the fact that BIOSes shouldn't be running any code specific to Linux, due to specific decisions by the kernel developers.
Quoting from an actual kernel developer:
Well, as most linux users are tech-savy, they are often being asked advice by less tech-savy people e.g.
-- What do you think about this PC? Shall I buy it?
*looks through the specs*
Foxconn Mobo? Utter trash! Don't buy it!
I do think that linux users are not many, but we are influential for sure.
Ryan1984's post makes it sound like a generic AMI BIOS problem with Linux ... I don't think this is the case. AMIBIOS runs well on Linux generically (it's on Sun Microsystems servers, the Asus EeePC & EeeBox, which all work with Linux) so this is probably Foxconn introducing a problem when they ported the BIOS to their boards.
Board manufacturers like Foxconn get a development kit from the BIOS manufacturer then port it to their platform. If Foxconn made a BIOS fix for Windows then didn't test it with Linux, this would cause the issue. A similar situation would be if a company made a variation of a Linux distro for their products but broke somethign that worked generically in the original distro.
I think the community response worked great for getting Foxconn to pay attention to Linux. They saw their business & reputation threatened and are trying to fix the problem.
No ... it looks like they got a licensed BIOS development kit, added code that broke Linux and didn't test it. Asus uses AMIBIOS and ships a lot of Linux systems (ever heard of the EeePC?) so I think this is a Foxconn "oops".
They didn't actually do anything dirty, they simply didn't do anything.
The problem is that the ACPI tables are handled according to the operating system installed and when the BIOS checked that linux was in use, it provided a null table. This is not because they purposely broke something, but because they failed to check the bios and follow through on it.
Evidently, and this is mostly my opinion, FoxxCon had no idea how much of a market Linux actually has or appears to have and took others at their word that it is too small to worry about. So they took a stock bios, made a few tweaks for the markets they thought would drive their sales and neglected to do anything about Linux. After they saw the response, they quickly and painstakingly got a workaround out and reversed their position because of the potential market size.
I over simplified the process there, there is a post obove this that goes into a good amount of detail. But it is more that they did nothing then that they did something dirty.
What are you worried about, MS changing the DOS API or something? ;-)
It wasn't just that the table was wrong, there was specific code in the BIOS to point to a a bad table.
This phrase, 'Never ascribe to malice, that which can be explained by incompetence', is absolutely a darkside distraction.
You've heard it so much over the years, that you start to believe it.
It's a *great* cover for darkside machinations.
Incompetence definitely exists, but to let yourself be deluded into thinking that bad things are due to incompetence is to show your own incompetence as a sentient lifeform.
Assume malice first, and search for proof of incompetence.
In this case, specific code was in the BIOS that was malicious.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
I'm surprised noone is comparing this saga to the AARD scandal that ultimately resulted in Microsoft having to pay a settlement to Caldera. you can read about it here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AARD_code but the case was about encrypted & obfuscated code inserted in Windows 3.1 to detect DR-DOS and preventing Windows from running on it. Internal Microsoft memos revealed the intention of the code: At one point, Microsoft CEO Bill Gates sent a memo to a number of employees, reading "You never sent me a response on the question of what things an app would do that would make it run with MSDOS and not run with DR-DOS. Is there [sic] feature they have that might get in our way?"[1] Microsoft Senior Vice President Brad Silverberg later sent another memo, reading "What the [user] is supposed to do is feel uncomfortable, and when he has bugs, suspect that the problem is DR-DOS and then go out to buy MS-DOS"[1] Later, after DR-DOS had been purchased by Novell and renamed "Novell DOS", Co-President Jim Allchin stated in a memo, "If you're going to kill someone there isn't much reason to get all worked up about it and angry. Any discussions beforehand are a waste of time. We need to smile at Novell while we pull the trigger."[1] The lawsuit was later settled.[1][2] Compare this to: "One thing I find myself about is whether we shouldn't try and make the "ACPI" extensions somehow Windows specific. If seems unfortunate if we do this work and get our partners to do the work and the result is that Linux works great without having to do the work. Maybe there is no way Io avoid this problem but it does bother me. Maybe we couid 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 relaled to this." In both cases it was Bill Himself that suggested to employees that they threw a wrench into something to prevent competing o/s'es from interoperating properly. Many of you probably know about the AARD scandal for I wanted to post this for those who don't :)