Lenovo has confirmed that several of its Yoga laptops are refusing to install Linux-based operating systems. The Chinese firm said the issue had been caused by its switch to a new storage system, which reads and records data faster than normal.
There had been confusion after one of its employees posted that Linux was blocked because of an "agreement with Microsoft". However, Lenovo has denied enforcing a deliberate ban.
The restriction affects PCs sold with the "signature edition" of Windows 10. The term refers to a promise that "junk" software is not pre-installed alongside the OS to avoid slowing down its operation.
The Lenovo rep's response (linked to in the excerpt) seems to have been given before the company PR people got involved.
Hot Hardware , offers an alternative perspective:
Yesterday, Lenovo confirmed that Linux cannot be installed on the machine because there are no OS-specific drivers for the device's proprietary RAID configuration. Given that this machine has been designed to work with Windows 10, it should come as no surprise that Lenovo probably didn't want to devote too much of its resources to developing alternative drivers for this particular model.
To be more specific, Lenovo had this to say:
To support our Yoga products and our industry-leading 360-hinge design in the best way possible we have used a storage controller mode that is unfortunately not supported by Linux and as a result, does not allow Linux to be installed. Beyond the controller setup limitation, other advanced capabilities of the Yoga design would likely not work with current Linux offerings.
Lenovo does not intentionally block customers using other operating systems such as Linux on Yoga or any of its devices and is fully committed to providing Linux certifications and installation guidance on a wide range of suitable products.
In a statement provided to The Register , Lenovo further clarified its position on RAID support in Linux for the Yoga 900, writing, "Unsupported models will rely on Linux operating system vendors releasing new kernel and drivers to support features such as RAID on SSD."
Related Stories
Last month was the controversy over some Lenovo Yoga laptops not working with Linux that was first alleged to be due to a Microsoft "Signature PC" requirement that later turned out to be incorrect. Well, the good news now is that Lenovo has issued a BIOS update and should allow for better Linux compatibility.
Following up on Last month's discussion.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday September 23 2016, @02:01AM
Code for "Microsoft exclusive"?
Obviously, they knew ahead of time that alternative OS's wouldn't have that driver. What other "advanced capabilities"? Microsoft telemetry, maybe?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by TheGratefulNet on Friday September 23 2016, @02:10AM
having an ide or sata interface with fakeraid is fine; but I have NEVER seen a controller that didn't ALSO have ahci as a choosable mode.
cue the apologists who would say 'but a user might enter bios mode and change that, making the system unbootable!'
yeah, you can screw up lots of things in bios. then lock ALL of bios, then, if that's the issue you care about.
making a drive controller NOT support ahci is absurd beyond belief. 100% chance MS and lenovo conspired to make this harder for linux, with ZERO technical reason. in fact, you would have to SPEND MONEY to remove the ahci feature since that's the default and fakeraid is always an add-on.
absurd. the consumer version of lenovo has fully jumped the shark. I still am ok with business grade lenovos (generally) but I'd never touch a consumer grade one.
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday September 23 2016, @02:22AM
Personally, I've never seen a good reason for RAID on a laptop. RAID doesn't even make much sense on most desktops. To me, it's an important server feature, but completely unessential for the average user. So, in effect, Lenovo implemented a server feature on a laptop, which just happens to break *nix compatibility?
Yeah, I'm with you on the conspiracy thing.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by TheGratefulNet on Friday September 23 2016, @02:23AM
more so - a CONSUMER grade lappie with - RAID - really??
absurd beyond the pale.
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 23 2016, @02:59AM
To be fair, everything coming out of Lenovo since 2008 or so has been a steaming pile of consumer-grade shit, Thinkpads included. Lenovo got big because people heard that Thinkpads were good and wrongly assumed that still held true and that it carried over to the rest of their product line.
They ruined the Thinkpad line, they ruined what was left of Motorola after Google sold it (namely, a stock Android experience with promise of monthly updates) and now they are shitting all over Linux. This, combined wih turning Thinkvantage drivers into bloatware and getting caught three times in one year injecting malware on products sold to consumers including hiding it in he fucking BIOS so it would come back if you did a clean install ... Lenovo is either grossly incompetent or actively malicious against their consumers.
Why the fuck do people keep parroting the old, "Get a lenovo" line anymore?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by lentilla on Friday September 23 2016, @04:43AM
There is a saying "in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king".
So:
Why the fuck do people keep parroting the old, "Get a lenovo" line anymore?
Likely because Lenovo has been consistently at least as good, if not better than the competition.
Purchasing a laptop is a crap-shoot at the best of times. Using Lenovo as a baseline is as good a place to start as any.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 23 2016, @07:54AM
Asus and Acer are good enough and have gotten better. Build quality has gone up for most laptops as SSD, fanless, and Ultrabook features have been adopted. There's no reason to stick with Lenovo if you don't like their practices, and everyone else has not heard of the issues and doesn't care about Linux.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 23 2016, @01:45PM
Not really. Your comment just shows that you really haven't been paying attention. You are coming from a place of ignorance, which only spreads mis-information regarding Lenovo.
At no point since the Lenovo acquisition, has a Lenovo machine lead benchmarks in its class. Since 2008, Lenovo has systematically shed every trace of the IBM-acquired Thinkpad except for the name (T61 - rollcage in the lid removed and removal of all IPS displays; T500 - 5:4 and 4:3 ratios removed; T510 - 16:10 replaced with 16:9 ratio; T520 - same as T510 except option for AES-NI added; T530 - removal of 7-row keyboard layout and replacement with chiclet keys; T540 - removal of the track point buttons, Thinkpads slate grey instead of black, removal of centered keyboards and trackpads to add a number pad). Meanwhile, during this same span, we've seen HP's Dreamcolor display become the industry standard for high-quality displays in a laptop instead of Flexview; the return of consumer-grade IPS displays starting with the Macbook Pro in 2012 and quickly replicated elsewhere; the option of non-widescreen displays on options from Google and Microsoft; the addition of captive screws for easier repair on the Latitude and Elitebook lines; Dell workstation-class laptops becoming as thin as the Macbook Air while offering Xeon processors WITHOUT throttling or the cooling issues that plague the W530 and up Thinkpads while also retaining properly centered keyboards and trackpads for better ergonomics. We've seen Lenovo try to remain relevant with the re-introduction of the P50 and P70 only to see them have poorly designed cooling systems and cheap TN-quality displays. We've seen Dell open a github repository with open-source drivers for their Linux-based laptops, while Lenovo doubled-down on Microsoft. And this is all *before* the hidden malware in the BIOS, the acknowledged certificate hijacking and now not playing nice with Linux users. Why are you still recommending them over anything else? Post-purchase rationalization? What is the matter with you?
Lenovo has become a consumer-grade company. This is a result of the Lenovo acquisition, and paranoia over Chinese backdoors causing government and corporate to abandon anything labeled "Think" over the past decade. Is that really warranted? Probably not. Not really Lenovo's fault, but they were abandoned by anybody important and are now following the money by targeting consumers instead of the business world; unfortunately, that market is a race to the bottom.
TL;DR - everybody else got better while Lenovo got worse. Stop apeing the old "Lenovo is good" garbage.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Friday September 23 2016, @12:03PM
I agree with you. I've had Thinkpads the last 15 years after too many bad experiences with Dells and HPs. My IBM Thinkpad was great, and the best laptop I ever owned; I actually formed an emotional attachment to the thing, which is something I never do with machines. The first Lenovo laptop was fine, but lesser than the IBM one. The one I'm on now is a step down from the last Lenovo laptop. The trend is clear.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Friday September 23 2016, @05:29AM
The "R" of course is short for "redundant." While I've not personally experienced a failed SSD, I've read in online forums that when they fail, they can suddenly become totally unreadable—a more troublesome failure mode than what usually happens to mechanical drives, in which only a portion of the drive becomes unusable. Assuming that's true, a RAID configuration that allows one drive to fail completely without loss of data strikes me as something that could be worthwhile. Because an SSD consumes so little power, I would expect an extra drive to have little effect on battery life, although if it were in the form of a 2.5-inch drive it would add noticeably to bulk and size. Personally, I wouldn't mind the burden.
Laptops with a single "hard drive" bay are the norm, but having two bays is nothing new (how many this Lenovo has, I don't know).
The added reliability possible with RAID could be more valuable in a consumer laptop than in a server. A server is typically kept indoors with power conditioning, filtered air, and controlled temperature and humidity. Often there's someone tending to it, who may make regular backups of its data and check SMART messages. The "life" of a laptop can be like: used at café, coffee spilled on keyboard; used outdoors, rain falls on keyboard; left in the driveway, driven over by car; carried in backpack, zipper opens and laptop falls to pavement. I don't perceive consumers as keeping thorough backups or keeping aware of the condition of their computers. RAID could provide extra reliability that could lessen the chance of data loss for them.
(Score: 2) by Bogsnoticus on Friday September 23 2016, @06:57AM
>"Laptops with a single "hard drive" bay are the norm, but having two bays is nothing new (how many this Lenovo has, I don't know)."
According to the spec sheet, it has one drive bay.
So there is no benefit to having it hard-coded to a single drive raid array compared to having it set to ahci. Which begs the question, if there is no real performance benefit, why do it except to screw with linux?
Genius by birth. Evil by choice.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Friday September 23 2016, @10:51AM
The specifications I found say "Hard Drive 256GB PCIe SSD" which could be a single card; I didn't see a mention of a drive bay.
http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/yoga/900-series/yoga-900-13/ [lenovo.com]
It does seem bizarre that they'd have a "RAID" consisting of one storage device.
I happened upon a discussion in the company's Web forum.
https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Linux-Discussion/Yoga-900-13ISK2-BIOS-update-for-setting-RAID-mode-for-missing/td-p/3339206 [lenovo.com]
There's also a discussion on Reddit, where a poster says that European versions of the computer allow use of AHCI, and says that someone has reflashed a (U.S., I assume) Yoga 900 to enable AHCI.
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/542c8t/hardware_hack_enables_linux_support_on_lenovo/ [reddit.com]
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 23 2016, @04:29AM
I've never seen a good reason for hardware raid in general, especially proprietary hardware raid. Coupled with the fact that this is on a consumer notebook, no AHCI support due to yet another bonkers UEFI implementation and I'm left wondering what the hell the people at Lenovo must be smoking.
Don't buy Lenovo is all I can say. I never will...
Don't get me started on the fact that Intel can't seem to make chips that won't "melt" without proprietary firmware blobs.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by MadTinfoilHatter on Friday September 23 2016, @05:53AM
I've never seen a good reason for RAID on a laptop.
The reason they gave here was that the default Windows driver had poor power management, and using the fakeraid forced the use of the Intel driver (with supposedly superior) management, so it's actually a clunky workaround for a Windows problem. Of course, even if true, that would only explain why this mode was the default - it wouldn't explain why the AHCI was removed from BIOS altogether. As these guys [bios-mods.com] demonstrated reactivating the option is entirely feasible (and would be trivial for Lenovo) and when activated the laptop works just fine. Unfortunately hacking the BIOS, if you're not Lenovo is a PITA, and requires specialized hardware and even soldering. [imgur.com] This really seems like a fuckup of proportions where it's difficult to attribute things to stupidity, and you have to start looking at the malice option - even more so given the official Lenovo "solution". [lenovo.com]
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Friday September 23 2016, @07:42PM
Hanlon's razor isn't the best tool, as this situation shows. Nowadays there are plenty of malicious actors doing things for their own ends, especially in the computer/software world. Its time to stop apologizing and realize that we are letting things pass that should have us organizing the metaphorical lynch mob.
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 23 2016, @10:44AM
I trust Nick Heath and Jack Wallen over at TechRepublic to get the story right.
Here's Jack's ideas on this: Lenovo sucks at making BIOSes. [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [techrepublic.com]
.
This reminds me of Foxconn and ACPI back in 2008. [1] [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [slashdot.org]
[1] hansraj is down past the point where highlighting works, but there's some other stuff up the (meta)thread that is marked.
...and, with everybody on their case, they straightened that out post haste. [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [slashdot.org]
...and, in 2013, Samsung coded a UEFI that was easily overwritten and which screwed up things for Linux.
...and they had done sucky testing on that.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by fubari on Friday September 23 2016, @06:17PM
Runaway wrote: "Personally, I've never seen a good reason for RAID on a laptop"
For average users, I agree with you... but it is nice to have the option.
For power users there are some good reasons (like video editing, or maybe running 3+ vm's on large data sets in my situation), RAID is a nice option.
The advances in drive interfaces (like this: Samsung: new m2 ssds [anandtech.com] ) seems like it will make raid in workstations less useful in the future. (Then again, data and programs expand to use available resources...).
My current (4 year old) work laptop has 5 drive bays (3 sata, 2 m2) and I get a nice speedup with RAID in that. The current generation of crazy-fast M2 devices weren't on the market then, so I'm running 3x450mb ssd's in raid 0 (pleasingly fast, and Yes, I do have a rigorous backup schedule thank you for asking). Also has 32gb ram, I really like this laptop :-)
Given that the CPU clock wars are over, my machines have a longer lifespan these days... upgrades driven more by advances in storage now that processor.
My next laptop (in 6 to 12 months) will likely have a pair of hopped up m2 ssds, one for os one for vms.
Also highly unlikely it will be be a Lenovo. :-)
(Score: 1) by petecox on Friday September 23 2016, @03:16AM
Bricking a computer by messing with the BIOS settings shouldn't be an issue if there's a 'reset to factory settings' button.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Friday September 23 2016, @04:57AM
Since only the CPU on-die temperature sensor can do a forced shutdown, most machines can be smoked out by selectively over-clocking everything except the CPU from the UEFI menu.
As for the general population, a schoolyard bricking routine is to disable the USB ports and boot device. You'd be amazed how many tablets and laptops end up in craigslist or in the dumpster over the owner failing to reset their bios by misreading the instructions and thinking the motherboard battery is the laptop's battery.
compiling...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 23 2016, @05:52AM
ricking a computer by messing with the BIOS settings shouldn't be an issue if there's a 'reset to factory settings' button.
Yeah, you say that! But what if 'reset to factory settings' fucks you up the arse? What then, Mr. Microsoft Shill, you? I beat upon you with my puny fists! You monster you!
(Score: 2) by Bogsnoticus on Friday September 23 2016, @06:59AM
Oh, shut up Donald.
Genius by birth. Evil by choice.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 23 2016, @02:04AM
Linux has always been trouble on new hardware because of drivers being either unavailable or buggy.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 23 2016, @02:06AM
Let's get this flame war started. Fuck Linux! can't even do RAID SSD WTF BBQ! LOL Linus is a fag!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 23 2016, @02:51AM
Yeah! Linux can't even give you a BSOD. I miss those. My Linux hasn't crashed since I started using it 10 years ago. And I'm sick and tired of not having to go through driver or dll hell every time I plug something new in because it just works. Dammit Linux.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 23 2016, @05:08AM
you haven't crashed your computer in 10 years?
you're doing something wrong. even if it is linux :)
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Friday September 23 2016, @01:20PM
My Linux hasn't crashed since I started using it 10 years ago.
Try making a move in Google Street View, I find that does the trick.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 23 2016, @08:15PM
Linux has traditionally been the last to get driver support. WinModems come immediately to mind. It is much better these days and linux is usually what many companies test first on as it is cheap and easy to do.
So yeah if some OEM decides to do something oddball with their hardware linux usually is not the first one to get support. It is usually whichever OS the box ships on. Even then it usually is some sort of slipstream junk.
(Score: 2) by boltronics on Friday September 23 2016, @02:50AM
For some types of oddball hardware, sure. Bumblebee comes to mind.
But storage? I can't remember the last time a GNU/Linux install didn't work with some kind of storage device. Heck, I don't think that's ever been a problem for me in the ~18 years of using it.
Why Lenovo didn't just include an option to switch off RAID might well have been related to an agreement with Microsoft.
It's GNU/Linux dammit!
(Score: 5, Informative) by TheGratefulNet on Friday September 23 2016, @03:18AM
I recently bought some nvme ssd modules in m.2 format and plugged into a passive pci-e adapter card.
now, this isn't scsi or sata - its all new, this nvme stuff. you really can't just call it like scsi and in fact its not /dev/sdaX (etc). no, not even /dev/hda, lol.
its /dev/nvme0n1p1 and windows7 won't install to it, even with 'floppy drivers' (double lol).
pulled down the latest MINT, booted an opto cd on the sata bus and the installer not only saw the nvme device as a bootable disk, it really did setup grub (etc etc) and the thing Just Plain Works(tm). I'm using it now, with hdparm showing 1000mb/sec speed, give or take.
point is: linux installs and sees stuff that even MS os's can't. this is on a haswell mobo, so its not very current but its still recent enough that it can work with some very new hardware. the bios saw the device but I cannot get win7 to see it as an installable or a restorable. I think win8 and 10 can install there, but its kind of funny that win7 just won't. I gave up trying. I'm using it as a linux box, only, now; not a dual boot system like it used to be.
they didn't ADD raid; they spent time/money/engineering on REMOVING ahci! and that's fucking evil.
if it had ahci it would be installable and visible to any os.
microsoft seems the most guilty here. they are doing all sorts of fucked up shit trying to force win10 on people. I see this as absolutely yet another example. lenovo is not innocent, but MS is the one who forced this.
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 23 2016, @04:25AM
> they didn't ADD raid; they spent time/money/engineering on REMOVING ahci! and that's fucking evil.
To be fair it is probably just a build flag. So really minimal effort required.
And if you think about from a mindset of forgetting that linux exists, it makes sense.
Its one less knob for an unsophisticated user to fiddle with and end up causing a support call.
Think of it as systemic racism against linux, nobody is out to hurt linux, they just don't consider linux when making their decisions and the end result is that linux ends up fucked.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 23 2016, @05:48AM
nobody is out to hurt linux
Do some reading pal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_documents [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 23 2016, @01:36PM
Aspie literalism for the fail.
(1) Those are nearly 20 years old now
(2) Hyperbole learn how it works.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday September 23 2016, @02:37PM
Microsoft Loves Linux
And . . .
Sharks Love Fish
Foxes Love Chickens
etc.
Every performance optimization is a grate wait lifted from my shoulders.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 23 2016, @03:47PM
Its your kind of stupid that guarantees ineffectiveness in actually combating the problems of being the underdog.
Far easier to believe in conspiracy than banality. But banality is endemic and automatic and is thus the far greater threat.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday September 23 2016, @10:16PM
Believing in conspiracy? this is WITNESSING it.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by boltronics on Friday September 23 2016, @04:27AM
Yep, that's right.
I personally have two M.2 drives in my desktop running Debian. When I first set it up, I had them running using software RAID0 (via mdadm) and LUKS, with LVM2 over the top. No problems since day 1.
Lenovo did have a choice though. Nobody put a gun to their head. In the end, they thought the hit to their reputation was worth the money they could make.
It's GNU/Linux dammit!
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Friday September 23 2016, @06:11AM
"they didn't ADD raid; they spent time/money/engineering on REMOVING ahci! and that's fucking evil."
Yep.
"microsoft seems the most guilty here. they are doing all sorts of fucked up shit trying to force win10 on people."
In all sorts of little ways. I have a new Acer machine that came with Win10 pre-installed. It took me most of a day to figure out how to get Linux to install, because the secure boot + GPT was pretty locked down. There's just no reason not to allow a user to turn off secure boot (if they want). Alternatively, there ought to be some way to install a second boot key for Linux, rather than running everything through MS.
By making it so difficult, any casual user will find it impossible to install a non-MS operating system. This is not an accident, and one can be pretty sure that Acer was paid for their cooperation...
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Friday September 23 2016, @08:44AM
Be fair, Win 7 is 7 years old and out of support (unless you have extended support contract), no surprise it won't see new hw - a 7yr old Linux probably won't see it either.
Now going back to the Lenovo laptops in question, apparently even the latest Windows won't install either, because of lack of driver support. Now, probably if you can get hold of the drivers and slipstream them into the install it might work, but it is also possible that the only way to (re)install Windows on these boxes is to use the Lenovo recovery partition, which would likely be nuked if you switch the drive out of raid mode. My guess is they locked out that bios setting to prevent users accidentally nuking the recovery partition.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 23 2016, @03:28AM
But storage? I can't remember the last time a GNU/Linux install didn't work with some kind of storage device. Heck, I don't think that's ever been a problem for me in the ~18 years of using it.
I remember when Linux didn't support SATA because SATA was too new. I remember having data destroyed by a shitty Firewire driver because I tried to run RAID1 across Firewire. I remember when I resorted to software RAID across IDE because IDE drivers were actually mature enough to work without causing kernel panics all the time.
Your 18 years of inexperience isn't worth fucking shit, apparently.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Friday September 23 2016, @04:03AM
Oh I know it happens here in penguin land too. I had a Promise IDE RAID card that was rock solid on RHEL/WHEL 3 and 4. Hell, I -built- WBEL4 on it. But sometime around the Fedora 7 period the kernel would see it and shit all over the filesystem if I was dumb enough to mount it rw when testing. For awhile I could get a source tree from Promise to build with some manual patching, it was a lot slower but didn't corrupt data so the only winning move. Eventually that too wasn't possible any longer and it was time to toss the card, the now obsolete drives and cage and get on with life.
But of course the odds are a lot lower of getting hosed like that on Linux, the tales of woe from Windows land of hardware being thrown into landfills because Windows + 1 didn't support the stuff are legion. You are dependent on either Microsoft caring enough to make the driver or a vendor writing one for an out of production device... which rarely if ever happens.
But the tell on this article that is is pure marketing bullcrap is "our industry-leading 360-hinge design in the best way possible we have used a storage controller mode" which makes me reach for the duct tape to keep my head from 'sploding. WTF?
(Score: 2) by Marand on Friday September 23 2016, @04:19AM
I remember when Linux didn't support SATA because SATA was too new. I remember having data destroyed by a shitty Firewire driver because I tried to run RAID1 across Firewire. I remember when I resorted to software RAID across IDE because IDE drivers were actually mature enough to work without causing kernel panics all the time.
Your 18 years of inexperience isn't worth fucking shit, apparently.
And I remember a Windows installation within a decade ago completely trashing a drive's contents because the installer didn't understand SATA but also didn't state that it didn't. Instead of complaining about unsupported hardware it tried to install anyway, trashing everything on the disk. Grandparent poster gave in to hyperbole a bit, but the basic point is sound: storage has been pretty well solved and usable in OSes for many years. Even with SSDs the difficulty came with using them efficiently rather than being unable to use them at all. This is a shitty situation created by a bad decision by a company, not a problem with any specific OS.
---
If anyone's curious, the rest of the mini-story about Windows and SATA: after the initial data destruction, I got a driver disc and tried to use that during install attempt #2, but of course it wouldn't work because the installer only accepted drivers from floppies. I hadn't had a computer with a floppy drive in years at that point, so it looked like I was going to end up having to get the newly-released shitshow that was Vista, or deal with trying to find a copy of XP that had SATA drivers on-disc.
I decided it wasn't worth the bullshit and my dual-boot system turned into Debian-only. I'd only been using Windows for games anyway, so it wasn't a huge loss. Later on, I stuck Win7 on a small HD I salvaged from another system for occasional gaming, but the damage was done. I went from regular dual booting to going months between boots. :P
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 23 2016, @03:30AM
Parent is an example of a post that most SN readers disagree with, but is not a troll post. It's a legitimate POV.
OK, don't mod him up, but don't mod down either.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 23 2016, @03:34AM
Most SN readers are rabid Linux apologists. YOU SHOULD USE LINUX BECAUSE LINUX IS ALWAYS BEST BECAUSE LINUX
(Score: 2, Informative) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Friday September 23 2016, @04:44AM
Call me weird, but, I say simply avoid proprietary OS's.
I don't think I am alone. Have you not noticed the systemd trolls?
The problem with systemd is that it make Linux about as reliable as windows: complete with automatically "fixing" things for you.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 23 2016, @03:31AM
Linux has always been trouble on new hardware because of drivers being either unavailable or buggy.
(Score:-1, Troll)
Anyone who has ever installed Linux knows Linux works better on old hardware. Moderator is delusional idiot.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday September 23 2016, @10:13PM
N/T
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 23 2016, @02:24AM
inherit the mileage on Steve Ballmer's frequent flyer account?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 23 2016, @02:30AM
No, no! It's not because of some secret evil corporate deal we have with Microsoft! It's because our hard drives are so fucking awesome and powerful that Linux couldn't possibly handle it!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by aristarchus on Friday September 23 2016, @05:45AM
You know, I just dug out a Dell-mini, Inspirion or what ever, which is running Ubuntu 8.04. Now I thought to self, that is kind of dated. Did apt-get magic stuff, no updates. Strange, not even security? Come to find out, Dell used a proprietary interface to the SSD on these puppies, and now you are unable to upgrade to anything beyond the original install operating system. Makes me think it is more a smart phone than a "netbook". So, do I buy a Levono, just to get screwed the same way again?
(Score: 2) by turgid on Friday September 23 2016, @08:37AM
Real philosophers write in the sand using a pointed stick.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 3, Interesting) by choose another one on Friday September 23 2016, @09:10AM
Or buy a PC from a vendor that tests/certifies its systems with Linux.
Like er Lenovo for instance... https://support.lenovo.com/gb/en/documents/pd031426 [lenovo.com]
[Note the laptop referred to in TFA is _not_ on the list...]
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Friday September 23 2016, @03:54AM
Bring mee pitchfork, arm the wagons!
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 3, Insightful) by TheGratefulNet on Friday September 23 2016, @04:03AM
To support our Yoga products and our industry-leading 360-hinge design in the best way possible we have used a storage controller mode that is unfortunately not supported by Linux
I fail to see what one has to do with the other.
anyone have any idea? anyone? bueller? anyone??
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 23 2016, @04:20AM
Never miss an opportunity to inject some marketing into your PR.
(Score: 2) by pkrasimirov on Friday September 23 2016, @06:42AM
You are not used to corporate bullshit talk, are you?
(Score: 3, Funny) by MostCynical on Friday September 23 2016, @07:45AM
Simple answer: all the words are in the same sentence.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by forkazoo on Friday September 23 2016, @11:59PM
Hey, who needs an OS that runs the software you use, when there is an amazing hinge. Is the most important thing we do with our computers, rotation?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 23 2016, @08:04AM
Went to the Microsoft store today (the retail place) and looked at all the laptops on offer. Walked out disgusted...as hard as I tried, I just couldn't stomach Windows 10 and that high pressure sales bullshit. Walked over to Best Buy, was greeted but mostly left alone until I had a question. Walked out 10 minutes later with my first-ever Mac product. I used to mock Apple fanboys but holy shit this is a nice laptop. OSX is quirky and takes some getting used to after 20+ years of MS but it really is a pleasant experience compared with the Windows 10 clusterfuck. I never thought I'd give a dime to Apple, well done Microsoft...
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 23 2016, @10:08AM
From fire into frying pan... I guess every minute one iDiot is born.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Friday September 23 2016, @06:09PM
I recently ran into the same thing when my Lenovo Yoga (previous gen) died unexpected on me. Given its the second Lenovo I've owned that has committed suicide after a year, I replaced it with an HP OMEN which has an optical drive, an i7, and even a numeric keypad. Very happy with it.
What I would love is a modern update of the Thinkpad T400; that machine was an absolute beast and I was rather said when my old one gave up; I haven't had a laptop since I've liked as much as that one.
Still always moving
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 23 2016, @06:47PM
If you got it Tuesday or later, and the operating system that is pre-installed is called "OS X", you got the old stuff.
Search string:
google.com/search?q="macOS.Sierra"+"September.20-2016"
(The S/N comment engine is still UNNECESSARILY deleting instances of %22 in hyperlinks.)
.
Additionally, Jack Waller, as mentioned above under ''the conspiracy thing'', has noted that Dell and ASUS offer "Signature" laptops but don't have this lock-in.
It's obvious to him that there's a reason we're only hearing about Lenovo:
They're the only ones that screwed the pooch (this time around).
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Hawkwind on Friday September 23 2016, @08:47PM
Yes. I'm still using a Lenovo (with Linux) but I have my wife on Mac products only. Tech support is now zero.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 23 2016, @08:26AM
The Lenovo rep's response [...]given before the company PR people got involved.
AKA the true reason before the PR bullshit narrative is adjusted to minimize the damage of such a dick move by both Microsoft and Lenovo.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 23 2016, @03:40PM
lenovo are common street hookers like most pc hardware manufacturers these days. They still advertise the minipci port for cell modems then restrict it to only use lenovo rebranded modems via a bios whitelist! this story is the same thing. they think they can advertise hardware with certain specs then use software or firmware to restrict it's use without telling potential customers up front. That's called fraud. we need to organize class action lawsuits against these lying bastards. It's the only thing they'll understand.