Well, they initially only released a custom BIOS with a goto statement added to jmp out of the disk controller mode setting (which is normally present and allow

Well, they initially only released a custom BIOS with a goto statement added to jmp out of the disk controller mode setting (which is normally present and allows the user to change back to AHCI mode). Reverse engineers on the Lenovo forums discovered this modification while studying the disassembly. Then, one user patched the BIOS and manually reflashed it using an SPI flasher and some soldering, and Linux worked just fine by detecting the drive. Yes, the ideal solution is that Intel gives specs to OSS devs to build a driver (or even builds on themselves), but the path of least resistance is to have Lenovo unblock that BIOS setting, which amounts to changing one line of code, or 15 minutes of one engineer's time.