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Samsung Laptop Bug Is Not Linux Specific
First time accepted submitter YurB writes "Matthew Garrett, a Linux kernel developer who was investigating the recent Linux-on-Samsung-in-UEFI-mode problem, has bricked a Samsung laptop using a test userspace program in Windows. The most fascinating part of the story is on what is actually causing the firmware boot failure: 'Unfortunately, it turns out that some Samsung laptops will fail to boot if too much of the [UEFI] variable storage space is used. We don't know what "too much" is yet, but writing a bunch of variables from Windows is enough to trigger it. I put some sample code here — it writes out 36 variables each containing a kilobyte of random data. I ran this as an administrator under Windows and then rebooted the system. It never came back.'"
The reason it was noticed on Linux is because a portion of this UEFI space is being used to keep a non-volatile copy of the most recent kernel log messages (so that on a crash event, it is easier to find out what happened).
These steps are actually NOT supposed to brick them. It is thus a proven manufacturing defect. So Samsung is obligated to "repair or replace". An external (JTAG) reflash of the ROM should be able to fix it. Samsung should also fix it by reprogramming the ROM code to perform UEFI correctly.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
> The title of the article is "Samsung Laptop Bug Is Not Linux Specific" for fuck's sake. Learn to read.
Sorry, but you need to learn to think.....
Sure the bug is not Linux specific. But Linux was the first to expose it. If they had tested on Linux they would have known it was broken and could have fixed it before releasing the hardware.
That is my point. Linux gives more hardware coverage and can expose bugs that might not be found otherwise. Linux provides a pretty much free test load for the hardware.
Any test house should be very very happy to have a pretty much free (only cost is small time to setup boot) second test suite for the hardware.
Riiiiiight. Like there's nothing to be gained by an over zealous anti-UEFI coder writing a virus to accomplish what all the sound logic presented can not: making UEFI cost prohibitive due to RMA's and ad press.
Right, instead of fucking up Windows (which they could have already done) they fuck up your firmware, and you honestly think end users would even know the damned difference. Pass the pipe please.
Maybe you should stop smoking that, it's damaging your critical thinking skills.
The users are not the one receiving a message in this scenario. The manufacturer is the one receiving the message. It works like this:
1) Unethical hacker writes virus to brick Samsung laptops.
2) Thousands of Samsung laptops get sent in under warranty for repair because they inexplicably (from the users' perspective) stopped booting.
3) Samsung bean counters notice that UEFI models have an unacceptably high rate of failure under warranty.
4) Samsung bean counters decide to kill UEFI models.