A possible bug in Foxconn boards BIOS affects Linux ACPI

[last1]

Mental note: Don't buy Foxconn. Or apparently Dell because they buy Foxconn stuff

[TheAlmightyCthulhu]

I just filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau, over false advertising, bad customer service, and misleading business practices.

http://www.labbb.org/BBBWeb/Forms/Bu...anyID=13160422

BBB gives Foxconn an F:

"We strongly question the company’s reliability for reasons such as that they have failed to respond to complaints, their advertising is grossly misleading, they are not in compliance with the law’s licensing or registration requirements, their complaints contain especially serious allegations, or the company’s industry is known for its fraudulent business practices. "

[jimv]

Wow, I just read the OP, and I must say that he's dramatizing the whole situation a bit much. I mean, seriously, the idea that Foxconn is trying to "destroy Linux ACPI" is ridiculous.

[jimv]

I just filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau, over false advertising, bad customer service, and misleading business practices.

http://www.labbb.org/BBBWeb/Forms/Bu...anyID=13160422

BBB gives Foxconn an F:

"We strongly question the company’s reliability for reasons such as that they have failed to respond to complaints, their advertising is grossly misleading, they are not in compliance with the law’s licensing or registration requirements, their complaints contain especially serious allegations, or the company’s industry is known for its fraudulent business practices. "

Yeah, with a whopping 2 complaints that were just added tonight. My God, they're villians!

[TheAlmightyCthulhu]

Yeah, with a whopping 2 complaints.

Make that three.

[KiwiNZ]

please remember this thread is about an allegation not a proven situation.

People should use caution when posting

[d-_-b.za]

Thanks for the heads up, one of my distributors only sell Foxconn boards, but luckily I haven't bought one yet and now I know to stay away from them.

But this brings another question to my mind: Do we have a central database/place to see which hardware is GNU/Linux compatible and which are not?

If anybody knows of such a database please post it, or otherwise one might need to start a database like this.

Regards,

Ps. I'm a Xubuntu newbie so if their is a obvious database like this please still post it here, or just pm me.

[TheAlmightyCthulhu]

please remember this thread is about an allegation not a proven situation.

People should use caution when posting

You can't argue that it at least would appear that they've gone well out of their way to run roughshod over Linux.

1. First they use a very invasive method to try and detect Linux, since Linux ACPI reports itself as Windows through the documented _OSI method, so we KNOW they were actively looking for Linux.

2. Introduce Mutes that Windows conveniently ignores, but lock up and crash Linux.

Looks like a Search and Destroy mission to me!

[KiwiNZ]

You can't argue that it at least would appear that they've gone well out of their way to run roughshod over Linux.

1. First they use a very invasive method to try and detect Linux, since Linux ACPI reports itself as Windows through the documented _OSI method, so we KNOW they were actively looking for Linux.

2. Introduce Mutes that Windows conveniently ignores, but lock up and crash Linux.

Looks like a Search and Destroy mission to me!

To be honest I find it hard to believe that they have a campaign against Linux. There would be nothing to gain and would have a zero fiscal gain.

I think it is a bug you have found

[TheAlmightyCthulhu]

To be honest I find it hard to believe that they have a campaign against Linux. There would be nothing to gain and would have a zero fiscal gain.

I think it is a bug you have found

After looking through the disassembled BIOS for the last several hours, rebooting it, and tweaking it more, I'd say this is very intentional, I've found redundant checks to make sure it's really running on Windows, regardless what the OS tells it it is, and then of course fatal errors that will kernel panic FreeBSD or Linux, scattered all over the place, even in the table path for Windows 9x, NT, 2000, XP, and Vista, and had to correct them (Well, at least divert them off into a segment of RAM I hope to god I'm sure about)

No, this looks extremely calculated, it's like they knew someone would probably go tearing it apart eventually and so tried to scatter landmines out so as to where you'd probably hit one eventually.

So if it is a mistake, or incompetence, then it's the most meticulous, targeted, and dare I say, anal retentive incompetence I've seen.