Last Minute Linux 6.6 Fixes Address Nine "Unusable" Lenovo AMD Laptops

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Last Minute Linux 6.6 Fixes Address Nine "Unusable" Lenovo AMD Laptops

Linux 6.6 is set to be released as stable this weekend unless Linus Torvalds has reservations and decides to extend the cycle by one week. In any case there are some last minute fixes heading in to fix-up nine different Lenovo laptops with AMD Ryzen SoCs to make the hardware more usable under Linux...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.6-Fixes-9-Lenovo-Laptop

[LoveRPi]

Hans always does great work.

[avis]

IOW don't buy Lenovo laptops if you intend to run Linux on them. They have required two major rewrites in the kernel for the behavior which is simply wrong/non-standard. But it also shows that Windows is more resilient to such OEM fuckery.

In my limited experience, HP has been the friendliest Linux vendor but still far from perfect.

Hans always does great work.

Yeah, and I was the one who stirred the pot and summoned the necessary people to have these two major bugs fixed.

[darkbasic]

In my limited experience, HP has been the friendliest Linux vendor but still far from perfect.

Yet my HP Elitebook 865 G10 does not even support fwupd

[avis]

Yet my HP Elitebook 865 G10 does not even support fwupd

I've never used this utility and I don't trust it. BIOS updates are distributed via Windows which I have left intact (just shrunk it as much as I could).

[kylew77]

IOW don't buy Lenovo laptops if you intend to run Linux on them. They have required two major rewrites in the kernel for the behavior which is simply wrong/non-standard. But it also shows that Windows is more resilient to such OEM fuckery.

In my limited experience, HP has been the friendliest Linux vendor but still far from perfect.



Yeah, and I was the one who stirred the pot and summoned the necessary people to have these two major bugs fixed.

Or maybe just maybe stick to their business lineup? E and T series ThinkPads seem to always work just fine. I even have OpenBSD installed on my ThinkPad which is WAY more picky about Linux about hardware, and the one time I put mint on it everything just worked!

[ssokolow]

I've never used this utility and I don't trust it. BIOS updates are distributed via Windows which I have left intact (just shrunk it as much as I could).

fwupd and Windows 10's support for pushing out firmware updates through Windows Update standardized on the same process: UEFI Capsule Updates. It's just a question of which repositories the manufacturer submits the update bundles to.

UEFI Capsule Updates are achieved by having the OS hand a file to the firmware and say "please apply this update on next reboot". The firmware then verifies that it's been digitally signed by the manufacturer and does a self-update driven by code that works 100% the same no matter what OS you're running.

it's similar to how BIOS-era things like ASUS EasyFlash worked, where you'd put your update on a USB stick and then press an F-key during the BIOS boot screen and the firmware would do all the work with the help of a built-in FAT filesystem driver and in a way that could work with no hard drives beyond a USB stick containing only the update file.

Intel even published a slide deck that treats LVFS and Windows update as so equivalent that it's a diagram with an "or" in the name of one item.

[V1tol]

In my limited experience, HP has been the friendliest Linux vendor but still far from perfect.

Had a Dell notebook - not a single problem with it system-wise. All problems were related to buggy Nvidia drivers and it could be used only with iGPU alone.

[ElectricPrism]

Considering the company's history, remotely installing software like how your Phone Co does on Android -- and the history of malware at the firmware level.

https://thehackernews.com/2015/09/lenovo-laptop-virus.html

https://thehackernews.com/2015/02/superfish-malware-removing-tool.html

In my book it doesn't matter if it's malicious or incompetent -- it's clear Lenovo is not to be trusted.

[pieman]

IOW don't buy Lenovo laptops if you intend to run Linux on them. They have required two major rewrites in the kernel for the behavior which is simply wrong/non-standard. But it also shows that Windows is more resilient to such OEM fuckery.

In my limited experience, HP has been the friendliest Linux vendor but still far from perfect.



Yeah, and I was the one who stirred the pot and summoned the necessary people to have these two major bugs fixed.

i don't think its so much that windows is more resilient as its the fact these oem's test on windows, and don't test on linux. they build them around windows, not linux. they don't care if it doesn't meet spec, as long as its stable on windows.

like amd with their first gen ryzen, 1000 series and the famous segfault bug. i'm not really shocked linux only had that issue because, especially back then, i'm pretty sure amd only did extensive testing on windows first. linux was second. though in this example, at least amd took responsibility and did warranty claims no questions ask. had my 1800x replaced back then from that issue and amd's support was great.