![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mjg59Update: Patches to fix this have been posted
There's a story going round that Lenovo have signed an agreement with Microsoft that prevents installing free operating systems. This is sensationalist, untrue and distracts from a genuine problem.
The background is straightforward. Intel platforms allow the storage to be configured in two different ways - "standard" (normal AHCI on SATA systems, normal NVMe on NVMe systems) or "RAID". "RAID" mode is typically just changing the PCI IDs so that the normal drivers won't bind, ensuring that drivers that support the software RAID mode are used. Intel have not submitted any patches to Linux to support the "RAID" mode.
In this specific case, Lenovo's firmware defaults to "RAID" mode and doesn't allow you to change that. Since Linux has no support for the hardware when configured this way, you can't install Linux (distribution installers will boot, but won't find any storage device to install the OS to).
Why would Lenovo do this? I don't know for sure, but it's potentially related to something I've written about before - recent Intel hardware needs special setup for good power management. The storage driver that Microsoft ship doesn't do that setup. The Intel-provided driver does. "RAID" mode prevents the Microsoft driver from binding and forces the user to use the Intel driver, which means they get the correct power management configuration, battery life is better and the machine doesn't melt.
(Why not offer the option to disable it? A user who does would end up with a machine that doesn't boot, and if they managed to figure that out they'd have worse power management. That increases support costs. For a consumer device, why would you want to? The number of people buying these laptops to run anything other than Windows is miniscule)
Things are somewhat obfuscated due to a statement from a Lenovo rep:
The real problem here is that Intel do very little to ensure that free operating systems work well on their consumer hardware - we still have no information from Intel on how to configure systems to ensure good power management, we have no support for storage devices in "RAID" mode and we have no indication that this is going to get better in future. If Intel had provided that support, this issue would never have occurred. Rather than be angry at Lenovo, let's put pressure on Intel to provide support for their hardware.
There's a story going round that Lenovo have signed an agreement with Microsoft that prevents installing free operating systems. This is sensationalist, untrue and distracts from a genuine problem.
The background is straightforward. Intel platforms allow the storage to be configured in two different ways - "standard" (normal AHCI on SATA systems, normal NVMe on NVMe systems) or "RAID". "RAID" mode is typically just changing the PCI IDs so that the normal drivers won't bind, ensuring that drivers that support the software RAID mode are used. Intel have not submitted any patches to Linux to support the "RAID" mode.
In this specific case, Lenovo's firmware defaults to "RAID" mode and doesn't allow you to change that. Since Linux has no support for the hardware when configured this way, you can't install Linux (distribution installers will boot, but won't find any storage device to install the OS to).
Why would Lenovo do this? I don't know for sure, but it's potentially related to something I've written about before - recent Intel hardware needs special setup for good power management. The storage driver that Microsoft ship doesn't do that setup. The Intel-provided driver does. "RAID" mode prevents the Microsoft driver from binding and forces the user to use the Intel driver, which means they get the correct power management configuration, battery life is better and the machine doesn't melt.
(Why not offer the option to disable it? A user who does would end up with a machine that doesn't boot, and if they managed to figure that out they'd have worse power management. That increases support costs. For a consumer device, why would you want to? The number of people buying these laptops to run anything other than Windows is miniscule)
Things are somewhat obfuscated due to a statement from a Lenovo rep:
This system has a Signature Edition of Windows 10 Home installed. It is locked per our agreement with Microsoft.It's unclear what this is meant to mean. Microsoft could be insisting that Signature Edition systems ship in "RAID" mode in order to ensure that users get a good power management experience. Or it could be a misunderstanding regarding UEFI Secure Boot - Microsoft do require that Secure Boot be enabled on all Windows 10 systems, but (a) the user must be able to manage the key database and (b) there are several free operating systems that support UEFI Secure Boot and have appropriate signatures. Neither interpretation indicates that there's a deliberate attempt to prevent users from installing their choice of operating system.
The real problem here is that Intel do very little to ensure that free operating systems work well on their consumer hardware - we still have no information from Intel on how to configure systems to ensure good power management, we have no support for storage devices in "RAID" mode and we have no indication that this is going to get better in future. If Intel had provided that support, this issue would never have occurred. Rather than be angry at Lenovo, let's put pressure on Intel to provide support for their hardware.
installed Linux on about 15 laptops, only one failed: a Lenovo
Date: 2016-09-23 07:26 am (UTC)The first laptop I installed Linux on was about 15 odd years ago - while I had some trouble I got it going eventually. Most follow up laptops where from a variety of suppliers (dell, toshiba, acer etc) and I never had a problem to get any of the hardware working.
The last two laptops are two rather new laptops, both with UEFI/LEGACY, both with AHCI, both with INTEL hardware and all INTEL hardware known to work.
One is a Lenovo Yoga, the other one is a Dell XPS 12.
It took me about 1 hour to get it to go on the Dell, I did that in a number of steps. I first made some space at the end of the drive creating a 30GB space, then tried Fedora 23 without UEFI in Legacy mode - it worked first go.
I then wiped that partition again, changed back to full UEFI, installed Fedora 23 with full UEFI enabled. Grub has taken over and I can easily switch between Linux and Windows 10, all hardware working albeit the touch pad being touchy - but that's the case too in Win10.
Not so the Lenovo - I tried everything for a week. I did RTFM, I read so many articles on the web, I followed every trick of the trade I have learned with myriads of kernel switches, debugging - you name it. I tried.
I have given up, my first failure to ever get a computer to work with Linux.
Luckily there is VmWare and Kali Linux.
Sorry, Lenovo sucks.
Re: installed Linux on about 15 laptops, only one failed: a Lenovo
Date: 2017-03-23 09:22 pm (UTC)i.e. the UEFI interface is not even accessible. Lenovo has been configuring this way for some time. It does not seem to be a faithful production of the EFI standard, IMHO.