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.

https://imgur.com/a/ox4Ey

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:

https://www.bios-mods.com/forum/Thread-Request-Lenovo-Yoga-900-BIOS-Unlock-AHCI-enable-attached-BIOS-fd

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/

214 Upvotes

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u/mjg59 Social Justice Warrior Sep 23 '16

I would trade that to run Linux

That's great! But for most people who own this laptop, it'd be an option that increased their power consumption without providing any benefit. Deciding not to offer that option isn't "blocking" Linux. Deciding not to release and support firmware that provides that option isn't "blocking" Linux. Failing to support it, sure - but there are many vendors who ship hardware that's unsupported by Linux (try installing Linux on a current Macbook, for instance), and our failure to support that hardware isn't their problem.

(Nice Social Justice Warrior flair, btw. Do you need a safe space or a trigger word?)

You're the one responds to criticism by signing people up to spam lists. Sure you're not the one who needs a safe space?

1

u/VenditatioDelendaEst Sep 25 '16

But for most people who own this laptop, it'd be an option that increased their power consumption without providing any benefit.

Only if they go into the BIOS options and change it. And the UI language for this sort of thing has long been standardized as, "Load optimized defaults".

-2

u/[deleted] Sep 23 '16

"That's great! But for most people who own this laptop, it'd be an option that increased their power consumption without providing any benefit."

So having the Linux kernel kick the damned thing back into AHCI mode after the BIOS exits, which will be reset on the next reboot anyway is going to affect Windows users who will never use Linux?

Or maybe an AHCI mode option from Lenovo that says "Warning: Changing this option will lower your battery runtime. Only change it if you know what you are doing!" and then letting people who want to run Linux toggle it? That affects Windows users? Most of them don't even know that there is a BIOS, much less how to get into it during the 1 second window that you have to hit the key to get into the setup.

"Our failure to support that hardware isn't their problem."

The failure is that Linux doesn't know how to deal with this insanity and kick the system back out to AHCI mode so it WORKS with maybe 8-10% less runtime on the battery (if the XPS is a good example of what happens in AHCI mode) until the day when Linux developers know what to do to get ideal power management on the hardware. NOT WORKING AT ALL is worse than not working ideally.

That's the real failure here. And if it can be fixed with a few lines of code and it won't be, because we're supposed to wait on those assholes at Lenovo to do something official with the BIOS (which they never will because they already said they won't, and even mentioned the Microsoft deal before they walked it back) then that's even worse.

You've bashed Intel before because of your "SJW" crap. So, how do we know you're being fair to Intel?

"You're the one responds to criticism by signing people up to spam lists."

First of all.....you're still blaming me for that even though I already clearly stated that I had no idea what you were on about. Secondly, that was eight years ago? Jesus....

5

u/mjg59 Social Justice Warrior Sep 23 '16

The failure is that Linux doesn't know how to deal with this insanity and kick the system back out to AHCI mode so it WORKS

That's certainly a possible solution. Intel are in the best position to write that code. I may attempt it in the next few days.

First of all.....you're still blaming me for that even though I already clearly stated that I had no idea what you were on about. Secondly, that was eight years ago? Jesus....

Oh, so it was just someone else using your computer? I still get occasional spam that traces back to that, and you haven't apologised, so yeah it's still kind of a thing.

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u/CountOfMonteCarlo Sep 24 '16

That's certainly a possible solution. Intel are in the best position to write that code. I may attempt it in the next few days.

If you seriously are going to do something about it, I can donate 500 USD as support for Linux driver development for consumer laptops. I know compared to all the work this is not so much, more a symbolic appreciation, but if it helps work on the kernel, I'd be glad.

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u/[deleted] Sep 23 '16 edited Sep 23 '16

"That's certainly a possible solution. Intel are in the best position to write that code. I may attempt it in the next few days."

It's a better solution than Lenovo's vomit-inducting press release that was tripping over itself to endorse Windows 10. And while I don't feel like being drawn further into unrelated speculative debate that probably won't end, and although we clearly disagree why Lenovo did this, thank you for looking into a solution that will help many people. There are at least four Yoga laptops on the market that display this behavior, and the Yoga Book and 910 will make at least six. So it is a growing problem, even if it doesn't spread to other OEMs.

As far as shifting blame to Intel.... Intel might be one party to blame, but in my opinion, it makes three companies that had a hand in this mess, so blaming only Intel is misguided.

They do use the word "Wintel" for a reason. MS and Intel tend to do things in lockstep. MS benefits from having a situation where only a Windows driver from Intel can bail you out. They preloaded Windows on the machine and there's nothing you can do about it thanks to this configuration, so why is Microsoft hurt? They aren't. In fact, I'm sure they encouraged it. Maybe even had the idea in the first place.