SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the things-that-make-your-laptop-go-BOOM dept.
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/12/21/ubuntu_lenovo_bios/
Updated Canonical has halted downloads of Ubuntu Linux 17.10, aka Artful Aardvark, from its website after punters complained installing the open-source OS on laptops knackered the machines.
Specifically, the desktop flavor of Artful Aardvark, released in October, has been temporarily pulled – the server builds and other editions remain available. A corrected version of 17.10 for desktops is due to be released soon.
"The download of Ubuntu 17.10 is currently discouraged due to an issue on certain Lenovo laptops," the Linux distro maker noted this week on its desktop download page. "Once fixed this download will be enabled again."
Installing 17.10 on Lenovo Yoga and IdeaPad laptops prevents the motherboard's BIOS from saving its settings, and while the computer will hopefully continue to start up, it potentially stops the machine from booting via USB.
The cockup mainly affects Lenovo computers, although other systems may also fall foul: selected Acer, HP, Toshiba and Dell hardware are said to be hit, too.
A fault report on Canonical's bug tracker tells it all – apparently, Artful Aardvark's Linux kernel includes an Intel SPI driver that was not ready for release
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Tuesday December 26 2017, @08:21AM (18 children)
What impression do you get when you read this article - and particularly its snarky subtitle "Free as in thank God I'm not paying for this"? That Linux is free, you get what you pay for and you should stay away from it.
Nevernind that the problem comes from an Intel binary blob, and that the lesson for the day is: proprietary drivers are bad.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @08:33AM (5 children)
The broblem is more Ubuntu than either Linux or Intel, in my eyes. If the driver in question was not ready for release, it probably should have staied in testing rather than being put in stable.
But then again Ubuntu has no testing, that is a debianite concept, so they just put it in the only place available to them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @09:48AM (2 children)
The latest Ubuntu is a rushed out trainwreck. This is completely unsurprising.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @10:06AM
PS: This particular issue has been reported to Ubuntu in October but they apparently chose to ignore it and ship it out anyway.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @05:31PM
We always wait for #.04 LTS.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @11:28AM (1 child)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @01:39PM
More like touchscreen phone smart keyboard related, when it tries to correct my English against my own native language spelling.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @08:35AM (7 children)
The comments are even worse:
You're a mere Linux apologist.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Tuesday December 26 2017, @08:44AM (2 children)
From TFA: "Least (sic) the Linux fanbois think we're picking on them, it should also be noted that Apple and Microsoft have caused their own headaches for users with bad software releases recently."
Also: "A spokesperson for Intel has been in touch to say the chipmaker is aware of the BIOS cockup triggered by installing Ubuntu Linux 17.10. "We’re actively working with Ubuntu to ensure the issue is corrected," she said. "This is a unique issue based on non-Intel recommended changes made to the BIOS configurations by Ubuntu.""
So the authors are snarky at everyone, just linux a bit worse, and Intel isn't at fault, you just shouldn't do anything non-standard with thier chips.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @11:42AM (1 child)
Amusing, as they really should have said Ubuntu fanbois...but El Reg has been becoming noticeably more 'tabloid' in it's approach to stories over the past couple of years and flame-baiting articles are sadly normal there, the title of TFA Ubuntu 17.10 PULLED: Linux OS knackers laptop BIOSes, Intel kernel driver fingered sort of implies that it is a Linux wide issue, as opposed to a Ubuntu specific one, still, at least they had the decency to add an update on TFA after getting in touch with Intel, where a spokesdrone muttered
"This is a unique issue based on non-Intel recommended changes made to the BIOS configurations by Ubuntu."
Which does somewhat also beg the question, who recommended these changes (seeing as it wasn't Intel) and why?
(Not that this little drama bothers me, Ubuntu I wouldn't touch with the proverbial 10ft barge-pole, and in my 24 years of Linux support/abuse/whatever I have only ever installed it once to demonstrate to a PHB that it wasn't in any way different to the Linux distribution we were using on our systems without issues..in the vernacular, Ubuntu is all fur coat and no knickers..)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @03:15AM
NO.
It asks the question.
It poses the question.
It presents the question.
It does NOT beg the question.
"Windoze is the most secure operating system." (No evidence presented.)
Later:
"So, as Microsoft makes the most secure operating system..."
THAT is begging the question. [wikipedia.org]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Informative) by sorokin on Tuesday December 26 2017, @01:03PM
Although I consider myself to be "Linux apologist" I believe Canonical should be blamed for shipping experimental software that was not intended for shipping. They did that many times in the past.
(Score: 2) by eravnrekaree on Tuesday December 26 2017, @01:43PM (2 children)
This doesnt mean Linux is at fault. Linux is following the UEFI standard. Its possible that the firmware does not properly support the standard and that the Windows driver was written to work around the firmware bug in some way. So, Insydes UEFI implementation is probably broken and that the Windows driver uses workarounds, to not trigger the bug. Also it appears to be a bug affecting just some systems which indicates something non-standard in the firmware on these specific Lenovo systems. Unfortunately, Canonical may not have the resources to test Ubuntu on every computer model on the market.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @01:55PM (1 child)
If they don't have the resources to test on every model they surely can provide a list of models that passed all QA unit tests on which they produce can be safely installed and/or pop up a warning during installation you're about to install on an untested configuration.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Immerman on Tuesday December 26 2017, @03:11PM
You're either grossly underestimating the amount of variability in the PC hardware ecosystem, or overestimating the amount of testing that Ubuntu can do. Even two laptops with the same exact model number can have significant hardware differences under the hood. Meanwhile, Microsoft is every bit as guilty of using their customers for beta testing - they just benefit from the fact that all the hardware manufacturers test against Windows, so problems don't appear as often. And they still manage to run into all manner of bizarre problems (last year for example I ran into several different computers that would hang indefinitely during a PC refresh/reset, until you unplugged the mouse.)
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Tuesday December 26 2017, @12:39PM
They do still have a pretty good coverage of the news and events in the tech sphere, including the occassional scoop, but if you want fair and balanced coverage of it you'd be much better off going elsewhere.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2) by eravnrekaree on Tuesday December 26 2017, @01:32PM
A bug in the firmware has been suspected so this may not be Ubuntu's fault but the fault of the firmware maker Insyde Software or Lenovo for having non-standard behaviour. Also, the drivers that are utilized are open source. There are features in UEFI that allow the operating system to set BIOS settings which, I suppose so the user can manage these settings from OS level.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday December 26 2017, @07:34PM
On the other hand, this isn't the first time Ubuntu knowingly shipped broken software.
Last time I tried to install Ubuntu (one or two years ago) I got hit with the same thing -- was reading reviews for over a month indicating the installer was broken, figured I'd try it anyway because those were mostly pre-release reviews and I assumed they would have fixed it before they officially released, but they did not. You'd get to hard drive partitioning and the installer would lock up, every single time. I ended up with Fedora, which has worked flawlessly ever since. Ubuntu will apparently throw any broken bullshit out the door if that's what it takes to hit their totally arbitrary release date.
And that was my first time trying to install Ubuntu after many years -- I swore them off after wasting hours trying to get it working after they shipped a broken version of ndiswrapper maybe ten years ago.
As far as I can tell, Ubuntu has never once shipped a fully functional release...I'm sure there's probably a couple in there somewhere, but I sure haven't found them...
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Saturday January 06 2018, @10:36PM
It's a binary blob kernel driver? Aren't those meant to be forbidden by the GPL?
I'm aware proprietary graphics drivers have been a thing for a long time, and I recall Torvalds saying maybe they were allowed because they weren't exactly written specifically for Linux, but it seems pretty weak sauce.