Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop

Re:Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop by tzs on Wednesday September 21, 2016 @02:55AM (#12545969)

It sounds like Lenovo's BIOS is using a RAID mode with the internal SSD that Linux does not understand. Lenovo apparently provides a driver for this RAID mode for Windows 10. If you want to install something else (Linux, Windows 8) you are out of luck until someone produces a driver for that operating system.

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Re:Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop by beagle3 on Wednesday September 21, 2016 @03:36AM (#12546122)

This comment from the reddit discussion is very relevant: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/53ri0m/warning_micro...

Quoth BaronH:

> Nope. You can turn Secure Boot off on the Lenovo Yoga models that this affects.

> They have the SSD in some strange "RAID" mode where Linux can't see or be installed to it, and neither can Windows unless you add some drivers to your Windows installer media. They removed AHCI mode from the BIOS. Then they wrote additional code so if you try to toggle it to AHCI mode with an EFI variable from EFIshell, it immediately sets itself back to RAID.

> For the last 11 months, they were silent on why this machine was configured this way. The only reason we know why now is because Lenovo answered my Best Buy review by stating it is locked due to the agreement they signed with Microsoft for the Signature Edition PC program, so it's very likely that all Ultrabooks in the Microsoft Store, and some outside the MS Store (such as at Best Buy) will eventually be configured so that Linux can't be installed, even if there are some now where you can install Linux.

> So consider "Signature Edition" a warning label that means "You aren't allowed to run Linux, per Microsoft.".

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Re:Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop by gmazza on Wednesday September 21, 2016 @03:54AM (#12546211)

If this [1] Lenovo employee's answer is a real deal, and this was in fact sanctioned by MS, I wonder if their actual goal was to prevent people from installing Windows 8/7/whatever. MS did go on record by saying they are willing to block people from installing old versions on new hardware. [2]

[1] http://imgur.com/a/niewu

[2] http://www.theverge.com/2016/1/16/10780876/microsoft-windows...

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Re:Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop by vertex-four on Wednesday September 21, 2016 @05:34AM (#12546644)

Given the quality of answers to questions that I'm used to by computer manufacturer "product experts" online... it's really unlikely that that's actually the case.

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Re:Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop by makaronin on Wednesday September 21, 2016 @03:03AM (#12545988)

It is much worse because Lenovo programmed the BIOS to lock the system so if you try to toggle it to AHCI mode with an EFI variable from EFIshell, it immediately sets itself back to RAID mode.

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Re:Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop by _ao789 on Wednesday September 21, 2016 @03:30AM (#12546100)

EFI = AHCI? EFI:EFI

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Re:Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop by userbinator on Wednesday September 21, 2016 @06:55AM (#12547002)

RAID mode? WTF? Why would they be using RAID mode on a machine with a single SSD, and according to the other posts here, deliberately make it nearly impossible to change?

Maybe because good-old-IDE or even AHCI was too simple and open.

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