Microsoft and Lenovo deny Linux install obstruction on new Yogas

[HEXUS]

Users have found it 'impossible' to install Linux on Yoga 710 and Yoga 900 machines.

Read more.

[afiretruck]

How does the hinge design affect the choice of a storage controller/storage controller mode?

[ik9000]

no idea. Had a look at one of these in a store the other week, it looks ghastly. The shiny metal weird hinge thing just ruins it. That's before the Lenovo sales rep gets involved to try to explain why you should overlook the HP spectre and Dell XPS to look at their inferior product.

[Corky34]

How does the hinge design affect the choice of a storage controller/storage controller mode?

It probably doesn't, from what I've read it's down to power management features and Microsoft's NVME driver sucking, Lenovo had to force RAID in the BIOS so it would use the Intel driver and not Microsoft's.

[afiretruck]

How does the hinge design affect the choice of a storage controller/storage controller mode?

It probably doesn't, from what I've read it's down to power management features and Microsoft's NVME driver sucking, Lenovo had to force RAID in the BIOS so it would use the Intel driver and not Microsoft's.

That makes sense, thanks! Still doesn't explain why they locked it to the RAID mode, but I get the feeling we'll probably never know why they chose to do that.

[crossy]

no idea. Had a look at one of these in a store the other week, it looks ghastly. The shiny metal weird hinge thing just ruins it. That's before the Lenovo sales rep gets involved to try to explain why you should overlook the HP spectre and Dell XPS to look at their inferior product.

Interesting to hear you say that - it must be one of those hell-sent devices for whom photographs are flattering - because the photo/video makes it look pretty nice. That said, IF I had the money then a Spectre or XPS13 would be ahead of it in the queue.

Speaking of the XPS13, it's interesting (coincidence?) to note that the Ubuntu-based "Developer Edition" seems to have slipped away from the Dell UK site and it's not exactly "in your face" (i.e. you can still find it if you know what you're looking for) on the US site.

[crossy]

It probably doesn't, from what I've read it's down to power management features and Microsoft's NVME driver sucking, Lenovo had to force RAID in the BIOS so it would use the Intel driver and not Microsoft's.

Hmm, I wonder if that's what caught me out with my W10-based gaming machine. OS drive WAS an NVMe based Samsung, and it worked fine for 2-3 months, then the OS corrupted and after that the W10 installer wouldn't see the disk as bootable. So I ended up swapping my Ubuntu and Windows partitions over. Ubuntu on an NVMe SSD is very nice.

[Corky34]

That makes sense, thanks! Still doesn't explain why they locked it to the RAID mode, but I get the feeling we'll probably never know why they chose to do that.

If i had to guess it was probably to reduce support calls, if a user changed the BIOS to ACHI it would use the Microsoft driver and they'd have people asking why their laptop doesn't sleep, wake, uses to much battery, and all those other power related problems.

[ik9000]

Interesting to hear you say that - it must be one of those hell-sent devices for whom photographs are flattering - because the photo/video makes it look pretty nice. That said, IF I had the money then a Spectre or XPS13 would be ahead of it in the queue.

Speaking of the XPS13, it's interesting (coincidence?) to note that the Ubuntu-based "Developer Edition" seems to have slipped away from the Dell UK site and it's not exactly "in your face" (i.e. you can still find it if you know what you're looking for) on the US site.

Nah, it's still there on the uk site too. I think it's to do with the product refresh cycle. (changeover from 9350 to 9360) Given that ubuntu is free, jsut get the win verison and download ubuntu and reboot. Job done.

[ik9000]

If i had to guess it was probably to reduce support calls, if a user changed the BIOS to ACHI it would use the Microsoft driver and they'd have people asking why their laptop doesn't sleep, wake, uses to much battery, and all those other power related problems.

why would AHCI prevent sleep?

[Corky34]

why would AHCI prevent sleep?

In of itself it wouldn't, however a bad Microsoft NVME driver could, I'm only making educated guesses as we don't have a definitive answer but what this guy says in his blog post seems to make more sense than a Lenovo rep being privy to an agreement made between his bosses and Microsoft

[BobF64]

So, basically, another automatic anti-Microsoft rant by Linux zealots jumping to the wrong conclusions.

They're as bad as Mumsnet.

[Corky34]

More like Intel saying they weren't going to fully support newer generation processors on anything but Windows 10, in other words without Windows 10 and Intel drivers you're not going to get the full benefits of some features.

[aidanjt]

More like Intel saying they weren't going to fully support newer generation processors on anything but Windows 10, in other words without Windows 10 and Intel drivers you're not going to get the full benefits of some features.

Only on the Windows side. Intel is still submitting driver code to the Linux kernel, there's just hasn't been a need for an Intel-specific RAID driver because the kernel has had a generic RAID subsystem that could manage RST RAID arrays on SATA/AHCI and worked well for the better part of a decade. And apparently Intel RST doesn't expose the NVMe interface to the OS like the old AHCI-based system did. Otherwise this would have been a non-problem.

What doesn't make any sense to me is Lenovo locking the firmware to RAID just to run the Intel NVMe driver in place of Microsoft's, they could just ship the laptop with the Intel driver preinstalled.

[Corky34]

I've no idea how OEM support works, if you install another OS do they still have to support you?

[afiretruck]

I've no idea how OEM support works, if you install another OS do they still have to support you?

Typically only if they officially support it themselves. Most of the time you'd have to rely on the OS's community for support with drivers/odd behavior if the OEM doesn't support it.