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Re:Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop by coldtea on Wednesday September 21, 2016 @06:27AM (#12546865)
>So they did lie when they said "Microsoft Loves Linux".

No, the title and "secret agreement" theory is just BS.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor

>Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

MS hasn't been the boss of anyone much ever since 2005 or so...

http://www.paulgraham.com/microsoft.html

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/APIWar.html

Re:Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop by 0x0 on Wednesday September 21, 2016 @07:20AM (#12547112)
Isn't the Microsoft key the only mandatory key in UEFI Secure Boot? So I guess they are still the boss of the (non-Apple) modern x86 PC architecture.
Re:Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop by coldtea on Wednesday September 21, 2016 @07:29AM (#12547159)
So, add a distro's keys (to the firmware) or use a distro signed with the default (MS) key.

Or get those Linux community to organize, and establish some body to create, and secure, keys for Linux that will be installed by default alongside MSs.

As someone who suffered from at least a couple BIOS-based malware back on Windows PCs back in the day, I'm all for securing the bootloaders...

Re:Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop by marcosdumay on Wednesday September 21, 2016 @09:34AM (#12547975)
Or get to learn something about key management.

A centralized key is not secure. A secure key is not centralized. If you want any security, the computer owner must be the only person allowed to install keys on the boot sequence - what is the exact opposite of what MS mandates.

Re:Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop by coldtea on Wednesday September 21, 2016 @01:30PM (#12550346)
>Or get to learn something about key management. A centralized key is not secure. A secure key is not centralized.

A centralized key IS secure, just not AS secure as a not private key.

(That's theoritically: in practice it can be even safer than a private key, because most end users are incompetent in managing their keys much more than the central entity would usually be).

And it's wrong to think it as a key in the sense of a physical key. It actually used as a signature.

You can't have "private signatures" because the very purpose of a signature is to verify that the thing it signs is signed by a specific (and in the case of operating systems, central: the vendor) entity.

An OS the user signs itself is worthless, as the OS data he signed could have come from anywhere or tampered, etc, before the signing.

Re:Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop by coldtea on Thursday September 22, 2016 @03:57AM (#12555262)
Correction: "A centralized key IS secure, just not AS secure as a private key".
Re:Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop by pikzel on Wednesday September 21, 2016 @06:58AM (#12547015)
"of course Apple and Sun can sell computers, but not to the two most lucrative markets for computers, namely, the corporate desktop and the home computer." - Joel Spolsky, 2004
Re:Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop by coldtea on Wednesday September 21, 2016 @07:32AM (#12547177)
Well, with around 8-10% today (9.6% according to StatCounter), Apple which targets higher-end, higher-margins gets most of the profits from the home computer market, at least in the US.

It is also doing quite well recently in the corporate desktop (see IBM adopting Macs, etc). Heck, they almost dominate the "startup founder/employee" desktop, as well as the "university student" desktop.

Re:Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop by forgetsusername on Wednesday September 21, 2016 @07:45AM (#12547250)
>gets most of the profits from the home computer market, at least in the US.

Do you have a source for this? I know it's the case with their phones, but they also have a much larger market share there. It's hard for me to believe they get "most of the profits" from the PC market with their minuscule share, especially when their computers are competitively priced.

Re:Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop by coldtea on Wednesday September 21, 2016 @09:33AM (#12547973)
Source? It has been reported again and again, along with the relevant stats. Examples:

Apple sells 5% of the world’s PCs and takes home 45% of the profit. (1)

During the recent third quarter, Apple commanded a 7.5 percent share of the computer market, up from 6.9 percent a year ago, IDC said. That was enough to move Apple up to No. 4 in market share for the computer market, pushing past Acer, which is now No. 5. (...) Each of the top five personal computer makers suffered a decline in total shipments, but four — Lenovo, HP, Dell and Apple — all captured a larger share of a shrinking market. (2)

* Apple's total share of the global PC market grew to 7.4 percent in the first quarter of calendar 2016, good for fourth place globally, according to IDC. That's up from 6.7 percent in the same period a year ago. (3)*

In fact Apple has such high per-PC revenues that it’s actually now the third-biggest PC maker by revenue – excluding Dell, because we don’t know what Dell’s revenues are, because it is privately owned. (4)

(1) http://fortune.com/2013/04/16/pie-chart-of-the-day-apples-ov...

(2) http://www.siliconbeat.com/2015/10/09/report-apple-widens-sh...

(3) http://forums.appleinsider.com/discussion/192668/apple-grows...

(4) https://theoverspill.wordpress.com/2015/07/13/the-deaths-of-...

Re:Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop by looserof7 on Wednesday September 21, 2016 @11:47AM (#12549267)
>Meet the new boss, same as the old boss

I think he means about character of those persons, who were something upfront and really creaky behind.

Like BillGates, who have done some bad things in past...

Re:Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop by rndgermandude on Wednesday September 21, 2016 @06:33AM (#12546903)
Then why did a Lenovo employee say there is an agreement? http://imgur.com/a/niewu
Re:Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop by akx on Wednesday September 21, 2016 @06:40AM (#12546924)
They might be misguided. Until there's an official announcement one way or another, I wouldn't pay too much attention to some random Lenovo customer service guy.
Re:Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop by Sylos on Wednesday September 21, 2016 @06:56AM (#12547007)
Right, but there isn't going to be an official announcement, unless a hundred thousand people jump to premature conclusions and bring out their pitchforks. I agree that it's not terribly smart to draw a conclusion at this point in time, but it's potentially more malicious, if we don't.
Re:Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop by sevensor on Wednesday September 21, 2016 @09:04AM (#12547761)
Regardless of whether such an agreement exists, and regardless of whether it's a secret if it does exist, I still have my pitchfork out. Lenovo had already lost my good will for their various other shenanigans over the last couple of years, but locking down the machine in a way that makes it impossible to install an alternative OS has decisively lost them my business.
Re:Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop by coldtea on Wednesday September 21, 2016 @07:37AM (#12547207)
Because he has no clue? He is a tech support person ("product expert") answering forums questions.
Re:Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop by DanBC on Wednesday September 21, 2016 @07:22AM (#12547123)
Because some support people don't have a clue what they're talking about?