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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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[Rant] A few days ago, I asked if Mint would run okay on a Lenovo T460 (I appreciate all the advice). I got it working, but the installation was a big pain and I totally blame Lenovo. (self.linux)

submitted 3 months ago by FlyingSquid to c/[email protected]

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I got the T460 refurbished and I really didn't want to run Windows 10 on it. I last used Linux for any real length of time a good 20 years ago, so I'm pretty inexperienced with it at this point and I had to figure out how to install it myself.

They made it unreasonably difficult to first install an OS from a USB stick. I had to go into the BIOS, turn UEFI to legacy, turn off secure boot, reboot to boot from the USB stick, install Mint, then turn legacy back to UEFI to get it to boot from the hard drive. This took about 2 hours of trying to figure it out by doing a lot of forums reading.

I do not blame the Mint community or the Linux community as a whole. There is absolutely no reason that it should have been that hard to install Mint on that notebook.

I don't even think getting into the BIOS once time should be necessary, but changing a BIOS setting so you can install the OS and changing it back so you can run the OS off the internal drive is just ridiculous and I find it hard to believe Lenovo couldn't have just made it easier. I'm fairly convinced this was intentional on their part.

I'm not an IT professional or anything, but I know enough to figure this stuff out with effort, but it shouldn't have taken that effort. It should have been almost plug-and-play. This is 2024. The notebook isn't even 10 years old.

Is there actually a good reason for this or are they just kissing Microsoft's ass?

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[–] Aganim 27 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

This has nothing to do with Lenovo perse, this is the average experience for every laptop I've owned which had Secure Boot turned on.

You know what is fun? Having your Dell basically bricking because Fedora starts shipping a new version of shim-x64 which completely fails the UEFI handover to bootloader. Leaving you unable to boot at all, so no chance of reaching rescue mode. Then more fun times of booting a live environment from a usb stick after going through the same hoops you went through, finding out how to decrypt your BTRFS partitions, manually mounting and chrooting them so you can finally downgrade the offending package.

Linux and Secure Boot just isn't a great combination if you ask me.

[–] FlyingSquid 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

That sounds pretty awful, sorry that you went through that.

[–] Aganim 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

And that's just the quick summary, first time I just restored a backup. But as my system immediately failed again after updating I started digging and came across some obscure posts of Lenovo users (ok, maybe Lenovo isn't that great with implementing Secure Boot after all 😋) having the same issue and devised that rescue plan. Quite the nightmare indeed, but at the other hand it also taught me some new skills. After going through the same routine on each update of that package I ended up excluding it from updates in DNF.

Don't now if the issue was ever resolved, I've since stepped away from Fedora as I've just had too many of these weird issues with it on each new release. Creating bug reports and the accompanying warm feeling of helping to improve the Linux ecosystem is nice, but in the end I just need to get work done.