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Lenovo Denies Claims It Plotted With Microsoft To Block Linux Installs (theregister.co.uk)
Reader kruug writes: Several users noted certain new Lenovo machines' SSDs are locked in a RAID mode, with AHCI removed from the BIOS. Windows is able to see the SSD while in RAID mode due to a proprietary driver, but the SSD is hidden from Linux installations -- for which such a driver is unavailable. Speaking to The Register today, a Lenovo spokesperson claimed the Chinese giant "does not intentionally block customers using other operating systems on its devices and is fully committed to providing Linux certifications and installation guidance on a wide range of products."
Complaints on Lenovo's forums suggest that users have been unable to install GNU/Linux operating systems on models from the Yoga 900S to the Ideapad 710S, with one 19-page thread going into detail about the BIOS issue and users' attempts to work around it.
Complaints on Lenovo's forums suggest that users have been unable to install GNU/Linux operating systems on models from the Yoga 900S to the Ideapad 710S, with one 19-page thread going into detail about the BIOS issue and users' attempts to work around it.
Here's the link to the actual story in case anyone was interested in reading it: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2...
I'm in the market for a new laptop, so I'll skip all of the Lenovos, and will pass that along to all of my clients. Thanks!
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
Often a minority group thinks it is being persecuted against because the majority doesn't go out of its way to make the minority welcomed.
I expect Lenovo wasn't really actively stopping Linux however they weren't actively trying to make something that Linux will work on either. They were making sure it would work for Windows though.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Of course they didn't conspire to block Linux installs - it was all about providing security to the user, by preventing anyone from attacking the BIOS and the operating system. The fact that this includes the user, and prevents them from "attacking" the operating system by replacing it, is entirely unintentional - or so they'd have you believe.
Sarcasm aside, there is a lot of security-related motivation in attempts to lock down the BIOS, UEFI, etc. The problem is that much of this also has consequences, and we clearly can't rely on companies to simply keep our best interests at heart on their own - but that should come as a surprise to no one here.
Dear god, no. Can you imagine the horror of listening to Haselton explain the flaws in manishs decision process for determining which stories to dupe and how his weighted reader apathy algorithm is better at finding the articles people want to see duped? For fucks sake man, think of the children.
As explained in the slashdot story from 3.5 hours ago ...
A reddit poster offered this, in his link Lenovo says the dev team is working on it:
""[–]0xFFFFFF 89 points 7 hours ago*
Levono is aware of the issue and fixing it: https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/L...
It is on hackernews, where people are being rational and theorizing that this is not microsofts fault. More like best-buy rep doesn't know what he talks about and the SSD doesn't have support drivers in linux kernal.. Or lenova messed up their bios implementation.
Luckily we have the reddit witchhunt in full force, so we can make uninformed rants!
Note: Every single previous similar scenario about linux being locked out has not been microsofts fault, which is why people are sceptical that this is the case this time..
I also have a Signature Edition laptop, it runs linux fine..""
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux...
The Lenovo link has an official post saying:
"Re: Yoga 900-13ISK2 - BIOS update for setting RAID mode for missing hard drive on linux install Options
07-27-2016 10:04 AM
Thank you for confirming it is still not possible to install Linux on Yoga 900-13ISK2 systems.
This issue has been escalated to the Development team. I am unable to offer a timeframe for fix at this stage in the investigation. With previous cases, BIOS fixes have been delivered anywhere from several weeks to several months.
I will post again when I have more information on the investigation."
https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/L...
This story is a couple of hours after the allegation story, if that story was updated with the denial and explanation now, there would be near zero discussion on the denial and explanation while the outrage about the allegation would stand in full.
That is why something as big as this is due two separate stories when the allegation and denial are that far apart - now go discuss the new "information" on the topic, does it change any viewpoints from the last story? Lets watch and find out.
This doesn't fit with the reply (from levono i assume) that the guy in the first story on /. said he got:
When he complained that he was unable to install Linux, the answer he got was: "This system has a Signature Edition of Windows 10 Home installed. It is locked per our agreement with Microsoft."
When he complained that he was unable to install Linux, the answer he got was: "This system has a Signature Edition of Windows 10 Home installed. It is locked per our agreement with Microsoft."
Rather ironically, the Thinkpad series of laptops from Lenovo have excellent (in my experience) Linux compatibility. Lenovo even publishes compatibility certifications for them. I use Mint on a T450s and it worked nearly-perfectly out of the box (only issue I has is with the touchpad, but I prefer the nub mouse anyways and leave the touchpad disabled most of the time).
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
Former flash memory industry worker here. Flash does not work that way. Write Enable is attached to whatever logic circuitry is there - to be asserted following the sequence of address/data write cycles from the CPU or controller to the flash. Write Enable is a dynamic signal tied to the controlling circuitry and logic - it's not something connected to a switch that can be turned on or off by the system's owner.
What you are thinking about is something called Write Protect - which locks a flash, but this can't be a standard solution, b'cos no 2 vendors implement it the same way. Some lock the entire flash i.e. the entire BIOS. Some lock the entire top few sectors and/or bottom few sectors. Some allow the user to select which sectors are to be locked when Write Protect is asserted. Yet, some flash have no Write Protect pins at all. Motherboard vendors - meaning the Asusteks, Gigabytes, Quantas, Compals, Arimas, et al are always cutting deals w/ the likes of flash vendors for the cheapest flash out there, and their designers are required to have interchangeable parts so that they can pit their suppliers in a price pissing contest w/ each other. Since WP# varies, result is the designers would deliberately either make WP# a no-connect, or tie it high to make sure it's permanently disabled. Thereby defeating your solution.
The whole history of BIOS started w/ it first being on PROM/EPROMs. But then, as motherboards became more advanced and in-system re-programmability became necessary, flash memory started replacing them. Usually, it would lock the 'boot blocks' of the flash - meaning either the top few or bottom few sectors, depending on where the boot code of the OS was supposed to reside. However, the rest of the flash was still exposed and vulnerable to being corrupted, which is why the UEFI and the Core Boot conventions were developed.
The real solution to this whole boot thing is the respective projects - be it GRUB or Linux or BSD - coming out w/ a comprehensive solution to UEFI. I know that FreeBSD has come some way in that, but still doesn't allow it such that I can set UEFI protection while still booting from an USB drive (which is how TrueOS wants to distribute the OS). That would help a lot more than playing footsie w/ the default settings of the PC.
If the issue was only that Linux lacked drivers for their SSD configuration that wouldn't be a problem (even though a bit of a dick move from their side). The problem is that there was BIOS setting to change the configuration from RAID to AHCI, but this setting was locked down. The person had to go through some pretty heroic lengths to unlock it.
Not having a Linux driver? That's explainable by stupidity.
Not having a legacy compatibility mode? Could have been explained by stupidity if it were the case.
Having a legacy compatibility mode, but making it inaccessible without a soldering iron? That's just malice.
And frankly, if the company is even considering locking down the BIOS like this, it shows that they have a very weird idea about who owns the damn laptop, and they're never getting my money.
entropy happens
Depends on the model. The second generation Thinkpad X1 Carbon didn't work with Linux *at all*.
If you want a Linux laptop, look for someone who actually supports Linux on the laptop. Dell has a few, including their XPS 13 developer edition. Purism's Librem laptops are a little more expensive, but specifically built for Linux. There are a handful of other vendors that primarily support Linux.
Lenovo has been hit-and-miss for a while now, and this isn't showing much that's recent:
https://support.lenovo.com/us/...
you don't know the whole story.
lenovo is many companies. their business laptop division is nothing like the 'yoga crap' that they sell consumers with crapware.
You mean the Thinkpad line that they acquired from IBM ? Yes, that one is an entirely different kind of beast.
- The good thing is that they are very easy to repair. (In addition to being very sturdy)
Whereas with some other constructors you can find two laptops that have the same official name, but different internals, to the point that their customer service actually asks you to give part of the serial number instead (HP, I'm looking at you...)
With Thinkpads, it's actually the opposite: plenty of different models share common parts (e.g.: the keyboard is usually the same across lots of models).
- The bad thing is all the BIOS / Firmware weirdness. Older laptops I've seen didn't have a full BIOS Setup. Only a couple of basic stuff could be change from the setup. Most of the settings where handled by DOS tools (like settings IO Ports and IRQs).
And the whole black/white list fiascos date back from IBM time - they "had to protect their business", i.e.: make sure you could only buy mini-PCI cards from their (expensive) shop, instead of any compatible after-market 3rd party part.
the spyware and phone home stuff does not tend to exist on the business level lappies. business guys would not put up with that
One of the main reason is that upon buying new equipment, the IT department of most business tends to reinstall a whole new OS from scratch (usually combined with all the necessary crypto-layers, remote-access tools, etc.) ..unless you manage to get it running on the "Intel ME" (The "lights-out" management engine from Intel : a separate low-power core that runs a small webserver that enables the IT department to do remote management on any corporate workstation or laptop, even when the main CPU is shut down, as long as the device is connected some how to the corporate network) or "IPMI" (the industry standard for the same functionnality used by anyone else beside Intel).
So trying to pre-install any crap on a business laptop is futile...
This firmware is currently NOT open, and can't be installed by anyone. It only comes together with the BIOS/EFI upgrades.
And researchers has already found tons of vulnerabilities in these firmwares. To the point that you don't actually need a real backdoor/spyware to spy on users, you just need to abuse one of the multiple exploit in the wild.
Current best practice :
- for servers : keep the management on a separate private network.
- for laptops : just kill the function, and ask the user to physically bring the laptop whenever you have maintenance to do. The remote access isn't worth the security risk.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I see you've never talked to a customer service person before so let me give you a quick primer:
a) they don't know what they are talking about.
b) they don't know what you're talking about.
c) they will say anything that sounds fancy to say that their product should work an you're using it wrong.
Now the other answer we got from higher up is that Lenovo is working on a BIOS update have given a time frame from a couple of weeks to a few months. But really all of this is beside the point since the reason the laptop can't run Linux has nothing to do with Lenovo, a BIOS setting, or anything, but rather that Intel haven't provided an easy working driver for their chipset to work in FakeRAID under Linux. This goes years back. Just look at the multi-page how-tos and screw arounds that people have used to get it working.
If Intel provided proper drivers then Linux would run regardless of the BIOS setting.
The person had to go through some pretty heroic lengths http://imgur.com/a/ox4Ey to unlock it.
Now THAT was hacking. This is the EXACT definition of hacking. Thank you for linking that.
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen