5 ms·

What if Lenovo and MS have an agreement what to preinstall on those Laptops - which is very common. Furthermore, Lenovo agreed not to offer ways to install spec

What if Lenovo and MS have an agreement what to preinstall on those Laptops - which is very common. Furthermore, Lenovo agreed not to offer ways to install specific other software - no bundled Antivirus CD, no downloadable Lenovo Picks app - and maybe or maybe not - don't prepare customer support to answer "how to install Linux". The customer rep gets a cryptic sticker on his desk: "Models 1234S, 3333S: Signature Windows Disk ONLY". If a customer calls asking for a restoration media, they get the correct one. If they call asking for Linux, sorry it is not supported according to my sticker. I'm just making this up of course, but it is not entirely unplausible to me. In fact I find it more plausible then just an accident. Why would a customer rep just make stuff like that up?

raesene9 10y ago
customer support person made stuff up 'cause he wanted to seem to know the answer, so he could close the call and get on with his job? Or Lenovo and MS have a vast conspiracy to use disk drivers to block linux install.. which is more likely.... you decide.
- farcical_tinpot 10y ago
  They are using disk drivers to restrict what gets installed - not just Linux both other Windows - Windows 7 or future versions of Windows which they want to build hardware obsolescence into and force you into throwing good hardware away. That's very likely.
- __jal 10y ago
  > Or Lenovo and MS have a vast conspiracy to use disk drivers to block linux install.. That's not a vast conspiracy. That would be a pretty quotidian conspiracy. In fact, it would look a lot like the "Winmodems[1]" that were a thing before (and maybe around?) the turn of the century. Those existed because they made machines marginally cheaper by emulating the modem in software. Which only worked on Windows and caused much gnashing of teeth back when. I believe Winmodems came to be solely because of cost savings. I also believe that the fact that it was functional exclusively on Win was a second-order effect that approximately nobody in Redmond took issue with. ...As an aside, I'm going to assume consistency on the part of all those who are being snide about customer support folks, and assume you make a point of never calling customer support (I'm not referring to the parent poster here). After all, you can't trust anything those idiots say, so why would you bother? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Softmodem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Softmodem
  - raesene9 10y ago
    Sure I remember the old winmodem days well, but that was a well known (and very frustrating) problem, which was a stated position of the companies in question. the customer support bit and wanting to move to the next call is based on my own experience of working in support many years ago, there was a strong temptation to tell the user something to get onto the next call as that was usually your performance metric....
    - __jal 10y ago
      > but that was a well known (and very frustrating) problem, which was a stated position of the companies in question. And I'm pretty sure it became well known due to discussions just like this, over time. There was a ton of confusion about it at the time; I'm really not in the mood to attempt to search for 20 year old nerd-grousing, but I remember it from various Linux lists at the time. And it wouldn't surprise me a bit if some CSR at Best Buy gave bad information about Winmodems, and people like me took the bad information at face value and then got in a discussion about it in some forum... And the cycle of life is complete.

raesene9 10y ago

customer support person made stuff up 'cause he wanted to seem to know the answer, so he could close the call and get on with his job? Or Lenovo and MS have a vast conspiracy to use disk drivers to block linux install.. which is more likely.... you decide.

farcical_tinpot 10y ago
They are using disk drivers to restrict what gets installed - not just Linux both other Windows - Windows 7 or future versions of Windows which they want to build hardware obsolescence into and force you into throwing good hardware away. That's very likely.
__jal 10y ago
> Or Lenovo and MS have a vast conspiracy to use disk drivers to block linux install.. That's not a vast conspiracy. That would be a pretty quotidian conspiracy. In fact, it would look a lot like the "Winmodems[1]" that were a thing before (and maybe around?) the turn of the century. Those existed because they made machines marginally cheaper by emulating the modem in software. Which only worked on Windows and caused much gnashing of teeth back when. I believe Winmodems came to be solely because of cost savings. I also believe that the fact that it was functional exclusively on Win was a second-order effect that approximately nobody in Redmond took issue with. ...As an aside, I'm going to assume consistency on the part of all those who are being snide about customer support folks, and assume you make a point of never calling customer support (I'm not referring to the parent poster here). After all, you can't trust anything those idiots say, so why would you bother? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Softmodem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Softmodem
- raesene9 10y ago
  Sure I remember the old winmodem days well, but that was a well known (and very frustrating) problem, which was a stated position of the companies in question. the customer support bit and wanting to move to the next call is based on my own experience of working in support many years ago, there was a strong temptation to tell the user something to get onto the next call as that was usually your performance metric....
  - __jal 10y ago
    > but that was a well known (and very frustrating) problem, which was a stated position of the companies in question. And I'm pretty sure it became well known due to discussions just like this, over time. There was a ton of confusion about it at the time; I'm really not in the mood to attempt to search for 20 year old nerd-grousing, but I remember it from various Linux lists at the time. And it wouldn't surprise me a bit if some CSR at Best Buy gave bad information about Winmodems, and people like me took the bad information at face value and then got in a discussion about it in some forum... And the cycle of life is complete.