Lenovo UEFI Only Wants To Boot Windows, RHEL

[Bbox]

Lenovo != IBM, not even a cheapcheap copy. They just ask for same prices IBM did before.

Aparently higher-end thinkpads are still designed by IBM, but quality has gone way down. On the hardware as the software level.

[necro-lover]

No, but on the other hand, only a complete tool thinks that stupid shit like that happens because of some on-high corporate policy and not just because of an incompetent programmer who didn't think through what he was doing and half-ass fixed some other bug or misinterpreted spec.
The classic corollary to Occam's Razor always holds true: never ascribe to malevolence that which can be explained by stupidity.

Only a complete tool ? you mean fool right?

Make it complex and there will be many errors that’s UEFI.
Make it simple and there will be much less errors that’s COREBOOT.

We will see many more of these kind of problems.

By accident,stupidity or even by evil conspiracy.

We do not know the real cause but we know that UEFI is not a solution build with freedom in mind.

[Wilfred]

The next computer I buy, I am going to ask the vendor and want in written paper that nothing is locked down...

Yes, me too. Fortunately where I live I can make this stick, i.e. if it doesn't I can undo the sale.

[necro-lover]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor

In my point of view "Hanlon's razor" is not the case at this point because even a perfect UEFI or a UEFI+secure boot without any bugs is in fact malice.

On the other side malice+bugs is even more evil.

True, you need an account but so would you on a jabber server. But then I use https://code.google.com/p/pidgin-opensteamworks and it works reasonably well for text messages.

Are you sure that you don't break the law by doing this?

Another problem is company’s like facebook start to check the account identity by mTAN and in Germany this force you to break laws if you want to protect your privacy and anonymity against facebook. Because you need to fake a handy-sim card with wrong personal data and this alone is against the law in Germany.

[tomato]

Are you sure that you don't break the law by doing this?

No, ToS is not law, corporations don't have such power, yet. They can terminate your service, but they can't take you to court, not even in America over such trivial thing. Decompilation and reverse-engineering is illegal because of DMCA, not because of EULAs.

Another problem is company’s like facebook start to check the account identity by mTAN and in Germany this force you to break laws if you want to protect your privacy and anonymity against facebook. Because you need to fake a handy-sim card with wrong personal data and this alone is against the law in Germany.

Messing with telephone networks is illegal in most jurisdictions, but that's logical as they're used for emergency services. Besides, don't you have pre-paid cards in Germany?

[Kano]

I am not fully convinced that the firmware checks for the label (-L) and not for the loader (-l). I know asus firmware that removes all duplicates (only latest one is kept with same loader). The same firmware removes every entry if the hd is disconnected but searches for the Windows loader and add those by default. Ether way it should be simple to fake the loader name or the label to boot what you want, a bit uncommon however. At least you have got full access live as the default boot path seems to be working fine.

[necro-lover]

No, ToS is not law, corporations don't have such power, yet. They can terminate your service, but they can't take you to court, not even in America over such trivial thing. Decompilation and reverse-engineering is illegal because of DMCA, not because of EULAs.

The power to destroy a digital life by terminate the service is in fact the power of justice because its destroy your social contacts.

Messing with telephone networks is illegal in most jurisdictions, but that's logical as they're used for emergency services. Besides, don't you have pre-paid cards in Germany?

I did not mean hack the " telephone networks" I mean the case pre-paid sim-card. But its against the law in Germany to use a card with wrong personal data in use to do the registration.

In Germany there is no anonymous sim-card.

[enrico.tagliavini]

Phoronix: Lenovo UEFI Only Wants To Boot Windows, RHEL

It turns out that for at least one of Lenovo's computer models, their UEFI implementation is explicitly checking for Windows or Red Hat Enterprise Linux and refusing to boot the UEFI-installed system if neither operating system is reported...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTIyOTg

I used to be a Lenovo customer for my laptops in the last years. Well this is a very bad move Lenovo. Even thinking such a limitation is a bad sign. Implementing it is simply unacceptable. I'm not going to buy any more Lenovo, if I don't see some more interest in GNU/Linux. For example some help developing a SMAPI driver would be very very appreciated.

[mmrezaie]

I have bought only thinkpad as my computer since forever. If I see this problem stays I will stop buying from them in an instance. This is something even redhat mentioned in their bootloader seminars a lot.

[amehaye]

Make sure that you only buy hardware which is certified to run Linux:

http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/ - pre-assembled hardware
http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/catalog/ - individual components