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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: 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.)