Lenovo denies blocking Linux on its Windows 10 PCs

Recently, there was a report saying that Lenovo is blocking installation of Linux on its Windows 10 PCs. That report was based on the fact that some Lenovo Yoga 900 users reported that Linux OS is unable to detect the RAID SSD storage on their Yoga device even though Windows 10 was able to detect it. The RAID storage will be detected by Windows using the special drivers from Lenovo which is put into the root folder of the installation media. For Linux, Lenovo didn’t develop any custom drivers and that is the reason users were unable to install Linux on it.

There is no way to change the SSD in AHCI mode because Lenovo has locked the BIOS into RAID mode. Lenovo has to lock down the BIOS as it has a Signature Edition of Windows 10 Home installed and it is as per their agreement with Microsoft. Many Linux users accused Lenovo for deliberately blocking the installation of Linux on its devices. Lenovo spokesman denied the accusation and gave the following statement to TechRepublic,

“To improve performance, the industry is moving to RAID on the SSDs and Lenovo is leading with this change,” he said.

“Lenovo does not block customers using other operating systems on its devices but relies on the alternative operating system vendors to release appropriate drivers.”

When the appropriate drivers and kernel support are in place for Linux-based operating systems, he said, “users will be able to install the operating system on an SSD with RAID”.

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