UEFI Mode On Linux Still Bricking Samsung Laptops

It turns out the Samsung laptop issue whereby the hardware would become bricked when booting Linux in UEFI mode is not fixed. There were patches recently applied against the kernel that were supposed to address the problem, but it turns out that there are still problems ahead.

Matthew Garrett, the former Red Hat developer that's become quite involved with UEFI support on Linux, wrote a brief blog post to say "the Samsung laptop issue is not fixed."

While the recent Linux kernel work addressed one point by which Samsung laptops could become bricked under Linux in UEFI mode, developers have discovered there's other ways that the bricking issue can be triggered while in UEFI mode on this hardware. They also found out that the problem might be possible to be triggered from a user-space application on Windows too.

Unfortunately they are still sorting out the issues in full and don't have any new fixes in hand. Until Linux kernel developers can figure out this issue where Samsung laptops can become bricked by simply booting Linux in UEFI mode, they are recommending Samsung laptop owners set their systems to run in BIOS mode.

If you're in the market for new computer hardware, be sure to see my holiday 2012 hardware shopping guide and the thousands of Phoronix reviews. One of the most recent laptops I'm quite fond of is the Cortex-A15 Chromebook.