Microsoft Reportedly Requires "Signature PCs" To Be Locked To Only Running Windows

[rabcor]

Microsoft getting scummier by the day is no news to me, ever since Windows 8 they've only been getting worse and worse.

[vortex]

Yet another BS story.

“Lenovo does not block customers using other operating systems on its devices but relies on the alternative operating system vendors to release appropriate drivers,” a Lenovo spokesperson told Tech Republic, noting that the issue is that some of its SSD-based PCs use RAID, and that is screwing up Linux. Not some conspiracy. “To improve performance, the industry is moving to RAID on the SSDs and Lenovo is leading with this change.

So, MS is NOT doing what they are being blamed for.
This is purely Lenovo trying to get the most performance possible, and not having Linux drivers for this RAID controller that would work.

[starshipeleven]

If this Windows 10 locked edition becomes the industry standard the last days of Linux on laptops are close...

Well, more like the days of just buying random crap from a store and running linux on it are over. No big problem.

Any guy that wants a decent laptop with good features bought an OEM one like these that also offer the "no OS" option. https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/laptops/
They are actually made by Clevo (bigass laptop manufacturer also making many HP and Dell and whatever else on occasion), that sells them to smaller OEMs so they can make a "custom" laptop without having to engineer everything from scratch.
Most Gigabyte or MSI laptops are actually re-branded Clevo laptops of some kind.

In the US there should be Sager and another brand that are also in this businness.

[M@yeulC]

Well, I hesitated reporting this, but I did some research before, and ended up concluding the same as other forum posters.

This is just a screw-up on Lenovo's side. They bios has a bug which doesn't allow to change the raid controller mode.
Then, an uninformed support spokesperson (since when are those guys informed, anyway?) went up on saying it was intentional and this was mandated by MS.

Thanks Eric. But is it "...which Linux doesn't support", or "...which Linux doesn't support yet"? Intel has been pretty good about Linux and open source as of late. Is their Rapid Storage Tech some corporate secret?

As it has been reported multiple times, even the windows installer needs to be patched in order to support this controller.
The system should boot more or less fine, I think, but would wouldn't be able to use this device.

So... just some uninformed BS by someone who wanted to make a buzz rather than contacting the usual support channels. Or, even more accurately, some uninformed BS by an uninformed employee who would do better a) to check its facts or b) to present a proof of what he's saying.

[haagch]

Michael Please update your article: https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/44694.html

[Mystro256]

The two big American political parties are in the back pocket of Goldman Sachs and the rest of Wall Street. In other news, the sky is blue and water is wet.

My dreams for a better US died with Bernie's campaign. #berned

[Luke]

First question is this: can the machine be run with the SSD removed and the OS exiled to a flash drive? If so, that is a "salvage mode" that could keep one of these out of the e-waste stream until that driver is written, the kernel patched to use the workaround listed in prior posts, or the RAID mode used supported in Linux.

Second: Lenovo is a known malicious vendor, which has used string checks in some models to lock out anything but Windows 8 or RHEL, other models included hooks to force Windows to reinstall removed bloatware-and yes, they were the vendor that preinstalled the Superfish spyware. They have proven again and again that they utterly cannot be trusted. Never accept a Lenovo machine (ANY Lenovo machine) unless it is a gift or a freebie. There are much cheaper laptops with less risk of actively malicious firmware, but as I've always said, never pay money any post Window 7 box without checking online to see what kind of issues it has with Linux. Apply this to other hardware too, as in the old days things like wireless that would not work with Linux, buggy battery monitors, etc were quite common.

The term "signature edition" would seem to be to be a red flag that M$ is getting paid extra and the machine may cost more, as in all other products that kind of language implies high-end or the false appearance of such. I've said since Windows 8 came out, never buy anything with Windows preinstalled without first checking online to see what the bugs are in running Linux on it. If it's a freebie you can put it on the shelf until drivers get written, BIOS gets patched, or the keys get leaked like what happened to blu-ray DRM, HDCP, and "Secure" Boot. Otherwise toss it like MS had to toss all those Surface Tablets with Windows rt that nobody wanted.

Worst case is this: MS uses all new keys and all new firmware locking to lock future versions of Windows 10 to the bootloader, and the bootloader to the firmware so that the keys have to be re-leaked, which could take years. The new hardware rule then becomes Chromebooks for laptops, build desktops from motherboards sold bare and in both cases favor AMD over Intel no matter what the performance difference. Time will probably come when some cheap ARM enthusiest board that uses open software because it is cheap is powerful enough to serve as a replacement motherboard for a laptop powerful enough to use on the road. You can then take that laptop that was junked for being locked, trash the board, and put in that future descendent of the Rasberry Pi or whatever. Hell that Pi can run Debian today. Even if the firmware is closed that is no different than a Pentium 3 running Debian Potato back in 2001.

[Luke]

Post unaproved: Question is this: can these machines run Linux from a flash drive and either ignore the SSD or run with it removed?

[FuturePilot]

Everyone needs to drop their MS pitchforks because this is somewhat misleading. There is no intentional Linux lockout here. MS can mandate hardware specs and configurations on their "Signature" PCs. In this case they opted for a RAID configuration (albeit a non-standard RAID) for better performance. The problem is with this non-standard RAID that even Windows can't natively use without a third-party driver. The real problem is that no one decided to create a Linux driver for this device. Maybe we could all fix this problem if everyone would just stop freaking-the-hell-out with all the "ZOMG M$$$$ HATES LINUX EMBRACE EXTEND EXTINGUISH" crap and put that energy towards developing a driver.

[GreatEmerald]

Hmm. Looks like not the end of the world yet, but needs constant monitoring of the situation to make sure...