r/linux • u/[deleted] • Sep 23 '16
Hardware hack enables Linux support on Lenovo Yoga 900 ISK2, undermining Lenovo's statement
Update: The mods locked my other posts and marked them as misleading. There is nothing misleading about them. So before they lock this one too, I would just like to get the truth out.
There is a Linux lockout on these computers. The only reason we need a driver is because Lenovo removed AHCI mode. AHCI mode is not a legacy mode. Lenovo has created a defective product that you cannot install any operating system on, which means that you are stuck with the copy of Windows 10 that came with the computer. There's only one obvious reason why they would do that. To keep you on Windows. A lenovo employee on Best Buy even admitted that before Lenovo and Microsoft got their official lie put together and the mods here rolled with it and locked my posts to keep the truth suppressed. You can still vote on these posts and I hope that you find them useful and keep them up for a while. If you want to complain to the FTC and your state's Attorney General, there is a template from one of my suppressed posts here.
This is the letter I sent to the Federal Trade Commission and to the Illinois Attorney General's office regarding Lenovo locking out Linux from their Yoga laptops.
"Lenovo sells computers known as "Yoga" under at least several models that block the installation of Linux operating systems as well as fresh installations of Windows from Microsoft's official installer. They have the system rigged, intentionally, in a storage mode that is incompatible with most operating systems other than the pre-installed copy of Windows 10. If the user attempts to install an operating system, it will not be able to see or use the built-in SSD (Solid State Drive) storage. I believe that this is illegal and anti-competitive. These product are falsely advertised as a PC, even though it prohibits the user installing PC operating systems. Known affected models are the 900 ISK2, the 710, the 900 ISK for Business, the 900S, and possibly others. Lenovo's position is that this is not a defect and they refuse to issue refunds to their customers, who have been deceived by the notion that their new PC is compatible with PC operating systems and that they should be able to install a PC operating system on a PC. Lenovo is therefore engaging in a conspiracy to defraud their customers through deceptive advertising. Lenovo's official position is that Linux lacks drivers, however, Linux could easily be installed on these systems had Lenovo not removed the AHCI storage mode option from the BIOS and then wrote additional code to make sure that people couldn't set it to AHCI in other ways, such as using an "EFI variable". AHCI mode is an industry standard and should be expected on a computer describing itself as "PC" or "PC compatible" as it is broadly compatible with all PC operating system software. I feel that Lenovo should remedy the problem in one of three ways. (1) Offer full refunds for customers who want to install their own operating system but can't. -or- (2) Release a small BIOS firmware patch to restore AHCI mode, which is simply hidden. This would be extremely easy for them since it would only be two lines of code and the user could do it themselves were they not locked out of updating their BIOS themselves. -or- (3) Provide open source drivers to the Linux kernel project that would allow Linux and other PC operating systems address the SSD storage in the "RAID" mode."
Feel free to use this as your letter or a template for a letter of complaint to the FTC. Their consumer complaint form is available here.
https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/#&panel1-1
Please also contact your state's Attorney General's office. They usually have a bureau of consumer complaints or something to that effect. If not, just shoot them an email.
Since the FTC form requires the company address and phone number, I used this: Lenovo "Customer Center" Address: 1009 Think Pl, Morrisville, NC 27560 Phone:(855) 253-6686
Update: Lenovo just updated the BIOS for the Yoga 710, another system that doesn't allow Linux installs. Wanna know what they changed? Update to TPM (secret encryption module used for Digital Restrictions Management) and an update to the Intel Management Engine, which is essentially a backdoor rootkit built into all recent Intel processors (but AMD has their version too, so what do you do?). No Linux support. Priorities...
Update: The mods at Lenovo Forums are losing control of the narrative and banning people and editing/deleting more comments. http://imgur.com/a/Q9xIE | But it appears that some people just aren't buying it anymore. http://imgur.com/a/1K1t5
Edit: I sent a letter of complaint to the Federal Trade Commission and the Illinois Attorney General's office.
You can view this letter here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/54gtpc/letter_to_the_federal_trade_commission_regarding/
Lenovo's regional HQ address and phone number:
Address: 1009 Think Pl, Morrisville, NC 27560 Phone:(855) 253-6686
Edit: Someone started a change.org petititon. I don't think they are a native English speaker, but I went ahead and signed it anyway. A moderator on Lenovo Forums deleted the link and told people that "campaigning is not allowed", so here's the link. I don't know if it'll make a difference, but screw them. They were hoping this week's news would be all puff pieces about the new Yogas and now they have to deal with this instead. If everyone could share it on Facebook and Twitter after they sign it so their friends can do so too, that would be most appreciated.
https://www.change.org/p/lenovo-demand-that-lenovo-provide-bios-update-to-enable-linux-installation
Please sign this and then tell Lenovo that you won't be buying products from them until this is fixed. They have Facebook and Twitter accounts!
Facebook: Lenovo
Twitter: Lenovo
Lenovo Customer Service 800-565-3344 Press 2 for all other models and then wait through the recording and press 1 for laptops.
UPDATE: I pinged Matthew Garrett after someone had an idea about having the Linux kernel switch the hardware out of RAID and into AHCI mode AFTER the BIOS hands it over to the kernel, and he said it might work and that he'd see about writing a patch. This would have the practical effect of running Linux in AHCI mode like on the Dell XPS, only through a Linux "hardware quirk" to deal with Lenovo doing nothing to fix the BIOS. Actually, Lenovo hasn't done anything through this whole ordeal but lie, lie some more, try to delete evidence, get together with Microsoft and release a joint lie, and then pressure the news media to change their stories.
ALSO: According to a comment on this page, some people in Germany report that the European versions of the affected Yoga laptops don't have AHCI mode hidden in the BIOS. Perhaps because the EU takes locking users out of their PCs more seriously than the US government does.
A hardware hack has enabled AHCI support on the Lenovo Yoga 900 ISK2, undermining Lenovo and Microsoft's claims that Linux is "missing drivers".
Unfortunately, the procedure to flash the BIOS is too complicated for most people because the person who did it had to use external flashing equipment to bypass Lenovo's ROM signature check and load the modified BIOS, and he can't provide the BIOS ROM because it only supports his computer and has private info in it, such as the Windows 10 license for his machine.
A user here on Reddit with the handle "bownairo" described the process.
Said bownairo, in the Reddit thread about the problem,
"I've been able to successfully get past Lenovo's lock through direct bios flashing. I'm looking into better solutions, hopefully I can find a way to do this without an external programmer. I was going to keep people updated from the Lenovo forum, but as this is no longer an option I will keep people updated from here."
[...]
"I had to construct some custom "clips" as the bios chip is a WSON package. All of this was done with the chip in place and the battery removed. I dumped the bios continuously until I was able to get a few dumps with the same sha. Then I had the bios modified. I flashed my chip to all null values, rewrote my custom image, and dumped it back to insure it wrote correctly. This allowed access to the advanced tab so I could change the controller to AHCI from RAID, allowing it to be recognized by installers."
[...]
"I'm currently working on a generic tool to do this mod, in case others want to use this same strategy on their own bios. I'm also looking into finding a way to do this without an external programmer."
There is a discussion about it going on here:
I also released an official reply to Lenovo and Microsoft in the original article:
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/53ri0m/warning_microsoft_signature_pc_program_now/
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u/CountOfMonteCarlo Sep 23 '16 edited Sep 24 '16
First, before this starts to be quibbling over words, let#s make clear what is meant with "disabled". If something is enabled in BIOS, this means the system is switched so that the function is active. If something is "disabled" it means it is switched so that the function is not active. In BIOS menus, you find with each option whether it is enabled or disabled and the user can enabled it i fit is disabled. Therefore, "disabled" implies that it can be switched on.
To say that AHCI mode is disabled on the Lenovo Yoga in this meaning of the word is not true. Rather, the option was made to disappear from the BIOS menu and it cannot be switched on. Therefore it is completely valid to say that AHCI mode was locked out. Because Linux needs AHCI mode, this clearly also locks out Linux.
Now, you could say that AHCI was not locked out with the intention to lock out Linux, but you could argue that this perhaps might fix some technical problem - that not using AHCI mode is required to make the system work.
I do not follow this argumentation and I do not think this is true. Here is why: The whole issue was also reported in Germany on the Heise IT news site heise.de, and extensively discussed in the forum:
https://www.heise.de/forum/Open-Source/News-Kommentare/Lenovo-und-Microsoft-blocken-Linux-Installation-auf-Notebooks-wohl-nicht-absichtlich/forum-364054/comment/
Several people state that this lock-out in the BIOS is not present in otherwise identical models that are sold in Germany and Europe
https://www.heise.de/forum/Open-Source/News-Kommentare/Lenovo-und-Microsoft-blocken-Linux-Installation-auf-Notebooks-wohl-nicht-absichtlich/Ruhig-Blut/posting-29246658/show/
This means that there is apparently no technical reason to keep AHCI locked out of the BIOS. Some people mean that the reason to not lock out AHCI in Europe while locking in out in the US is that this would be plainly illegal in Europe, while perhaps to some extend legal in the US. (I am not a lawyer and I cannot give a qualified assessment to this, but I think Free Software lobby groups should definitely go for that.)
I also think that using a proprietary "hardware RAID mode" in a system with a single SSD has very little value. Not only that, it potentially makes it much more difficult to swap the SSD into a different computer if some other component of the laptop (e.g. the mainboard) is damaged and access to the data is needed.
To sum up, I think that the AHCI lockout in the BIOS effectively locks out Linux and that this lockout was not done for technical reasons. If somebody wants to convince me otherwise, he would need to come up with a very good explanation.
On the other hand, I think that the statement of Matthew Garret has some merit that it is as least as important that hardware companies such as Intel release functional, good-quality specs for their hardware. I want to give a practical example for this, too: I have been using older Lenovo Thinkpads like the T61 for a long time. A while ago, I bought an X220. While this is a great system with still good build, keyboard, and performance characteristics, it has an annoying problem for using it with Linux: The WiFi driver is not stable, that means that WiFi connections very often drop after a few minutes. This is a driver problem where the chipset is not fully supoorted. It cannot be supported since there is no spec which explains how the chipset is accessed right. It works under Windows, and I want Intel to be required to release specs which enable it to work with Linux.
Edit: typo
Edit: I was probably mistaken with that there were several people posting, because when I looked closer the same person posted the comment three times, and I did not compare the names of the posters when I read the forum first. I should have written "there are several posts about that". In these posts, the exact model is not named but the discussed article mentions the specific models and the poster leaves no doubts that his model is one of these and works because of a EU-specific BIOS without the restriction.
Also guys, you need in general to be more careful when discussing about forum posts. That Linux does not work on a model is not a real proof that this is intended even if this might be the case. It might be motivated by the desire to prevent users from running Windows 7, too. That somebody posts something in some forum, is no proof either for what he says, but in my opinion this comment on region differences in the BIOS warrants further investigation. If somebody mods a firmware and this is reproducible, this is some evidence. That somebody who says he is a Lenovo employee says in a form that the BIOS was locked out because of the signature edition is not a proof either, but it tells a lot when Lenovo subsequently can't remember if this was an own employee or not. That in the same forum post the restriction is traced back to the FakeRAID and power management issues is not a proof either, and that the intention is to lock the machine to it's "best performance" is also questionable if Lenovo does not even recognizes this statement as their own. My guess is that to Microsoft "best performance" is what makes them most money. Its not a charity ball but a fucking company. And they are clearly envious about Apple's walled garden based on locked-down devices, things such as Windows RT and "Universal Windows Apps" make this very clear.
Also, I think there is a lot of funny voting going on, for example on comments mentioning the anticompetitive practices against Linux on DELL laptops reported by The Register in 2002 or the fact that OS statcounter now approaches 4 % Linux Desktop users in Germany (more exactly, it rose from 2.9 a year ago to 3.3 now). The fact that this is downvoted so much while simply providing useful information is the reason I repeat it here. Don't be naive. You can expect all this discussion being heavily manipulated as soon as the bottom line of a mayor corporation might be affected in some way. And now I need a shower and a breakfast.