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Ask HN: Lenovo encouraging Chromebook users to install Linux?
I was surprised to see that Lenovo has a guide to installing the Linux distro of your choosing on a Lenovo Chromebook device. I guess the cynic in me expects that companies want you to use whatever OS is bundled with the hardware rather than encouraging users to use the hardware the way they'd like -- or at least that they wouldn't want to make it easy to overwrite the ChromeOS install by providing a helpful how-to!
Can anyone think of why Lenovo would do this? I would expect that this would potentially draw the ire of Google, but surely Lenovo has thought this through and maybe knows Google doesn't care enough? Just curious if anyone can speak to Lenovo's incentive calculus here
https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/faqs/operating-systems/install-linux-chromebook/
(Ps: the guide is somewhat out of date -- for those curious, this seems the way forward for Chromebook users looking to install a Linux distro of their choosing https://docs.chrultrabook.com/
Seems the galliumos project mentioned in the Lenovo link is now discontinued)
- xet7 3y agoI installed Debian to Chromebook: https://github.com/xet7/chromebook https://github.com/xet7/chromebook
- mickelsen 3y agox86-only :c
- mindcrime 3y agoLenovo secretly want Linux to catch on big-time, because they HATE the amount of leverage Microsoft have over them due to the ubiquity of Windows on so many of their devices. But they have to be careful to not embrace Linux too openly for fear of Microsoft retaliation. So they're in a bit of a catch-22 situation. I'm sorry, I won't say any more than that due to the possibility of transgressing some long forgotten NDA. But if you can run down any current or former Lenovo employees I doubt you'll have a hard time confirming this. Also note that this was true circa 2019 or so, and went at least as high as the #1 exec in the company's PC division. Note: they may also resent Google for similar reasons, but I can't speak to that from first hand knowledge.
- pjmlp 3y agoIf that was true they would have had more than time to actually ship a Lenovo Linux with Thinkpads. Yet in most regions it isn't even an option on the business store.
- lnxg33k1 3y agoI don’t think that would be the case for Microsoft to retaliate, I suspect there might be a whole bunch of regulators just waiting this abuse of dominant position just to stop the spread of competition
- tgma 3y agoLOL. That would be naïve. They just have to retaliate in such a way that keeps plausible deniability with the regulator.
- lnxg33k1 3y agoTo me it looks more like your is the naive point, you're talking like microsoft is a random guy in some basement, it's a huge company with a massive headcount, how do you deny when you can request internal communication or have potential whistleblowers? Looks surprising that after all the times regulators have fined/regulated these massive corps people still think that they can "act surprised/denying"
- shiroiuma 3y agoWhich regulators? "Regulators" in the US aren't going to do anything at all about Microsoft. Regulators in the EU may slap MS with some fines, but it'll just be a "cost of doing business" fine.
- kragen 3y agolenovo is chinese, microsoft is usa
- 3y ago
- jeffbee 3y agoWhy do you have to twist this into a weird conspiracy? It says this is a FAQ. The simplest explanation is that actual users asked these questions, so Lenovo wrote these answers.
- NoZebra120vClip 3y agoWhile that is the origin of the acronym, it is not indicative of how FAQs are compiled today, especially by corporate support. It's merely a category of document to them. The first entry in these instructions is how to enable the built-in Linux subsystem in ChromeOS. So, there's their token effort to see people keep it around. The last entry in the document is a link to their systems which come preloaded with Linux. You see, if someone enjoys toying with Linux on an underpowered/non-certified device, they will love upgrading to a full-fledged machine that can really cope with all they want to do now. I purchased a Lenovo ThinkPad T580 in 2018 because it was certified for RHEL. They also have a range that's certified for Ubuntu. Despite my device's certification, it came preloaded with Windows 10, but I did run flawless Fedora for several years, before reverting. That Lenovo is still going strong, and one of a pair of "daily drivers". (My other one is a Chromebook! Yes, I run Linux on it, every day!)
- thatguysaguy 3y agoMy personal laptop setup has been arch on a Lenovo Thinkpad for about 7 years now. It's been great!
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- kiwijamo 3y agoMy experience across 2 Lenovo machines is that Linux support on Lenovo hardware is pretty much 1st class compared to other major PC brands. Not surprised they've done this to be honest.
- neelc 3y agoThe reality is, many Lenovo customers buy their laptops just for Linux. In turn, Lenovo knows they need to cater to Linux users. Same with Dell. It's not most of their customers, but it's the most loyal customers. Customers who won't switch to HP, Asus, or Surface. In comparison, HP knows only a few of their customers use Linux, so they can be mostly-Windows with so-so Linux support. Before switching to a M2 MacBook Air, my HP Spectre's Linux support was behind my work ThinkPad. Not being a huge ThinkPad person myself is why I bought many Spectres. But for most people, if a ThinkPad works better, they'll buy it.
- dralley 3y agoIt also helps that Lenovo is the primary corporate laptop supplier to Red Hat.
- cowboysauce 3y ago> I would expect that this would potentially draw the ire of Google Chromebooks are pretty open. See official documentation at https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/docs/+/HEAD/developer_mode.md https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/docs/+/HEAD/dev... which directs to a third party site dedicated to installing alternative OSs and firmware.
- rr808 3y agoI wonder if Lenovo being a Chinese company has a lot of customers that really dont want a close source American OS.
- tadfisher 3y agoNot really, just that lots of developers choose ThinkPads for Linux support, so they have teams dedicated to Linux support across their hardware. Most of it is patching firmware bugs.
- davidhyde 3y agoThe Linux distros I have used do not seem to turn on full blast anti-virus scanning and search indexing when your laptop goes idle. Not sure about ChromeOS but this is something that causes terrible fan noise on Windows when you expect the machine to be silent. I never could get it under control way back when. Lenovo may not like the negative reviews about fan noise and battery life when it’s generally a software problem.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]