The penguins – i.e. Linux users and fans – are marching against Lenovo, and the world’s No. 1 PC manufacturer is trying to calm a controversy on the net among Linux users. The company insists it is not intentionally blocking Linux installations on some new PCs. 

A comment reported to be from a Lenovo employee at a Best Buy website set off the firestorm when complaints surfaced about the inability to install Linux.

“”This system has a Signature Edition of Windows 10 Home installed. It is locked per our agreement with Microsoft,” read the post.

A few hours later, a Lenovo spokesperson told the U.K. Register that it “does not intentionally block customers using other operating systems on its devices and is fully committed to providing Linux certifications and installation guidance on a wide range of products.”

Lenovo also issued a formal statement to some tech websites, explaining in its view what happened.

But by that time the web was filled with questions – and anger.

Noted PC World, the net was “ablaze amidst reports of failed Linux installs on the Lenovo Yoga 900 13ISK2 and Ideapad 710S … The howls intensified when an unverified person identifying herself as a ‘Lenovo Product Expert’ answered a question.”

In the statement to Tech Republic and ZDNet, Lenovo said:

“To improve system performance, Lenovo is leading an industry trend of adopting RAID on the SSDs in certain product configurations. Lenovo does not intentionally block customers using other operating systems on its devices and is fully committed to providing Linux certifications and installation guidance on a wide range of products. Unsupported models will rely on Linux operating system vendors releasing new kernel and drivers to support features such as RAID on SSD.”

RAID refers to Redundant Array of Independent Disks, which PC Magazine defines this way: “A disk subsystem that increases performance or provides fault tolerance or both. RAID uses two or more physical disk drives and a RAID controller, which is plugged into motherboards that do not have RAID circuits.”

SSD refers to solid state drives, which PC Magazine defines as: “An all-electronic storage device that is an alternative to a hard disk. Employed in myriad products, including mobile devices, iPods, cameras, laptops and desktop computers, solid state drives (SSDs) are faster than hard disks because there is zero latency (no read/write head to move).”

Read the Register story at:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/09/21/lenovo_denies_plot_with_microsoft_to_block_linux_installs/

Read the PC World story at:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3122593/computers/some-lenovo-pcs-wont-install-linux-due-to-storage-woes-not-microsoft-evildoing.html