07:11 <sb0> I just bought a new tablet pc. windows crashed and the whole machine froze before it could even complete the linux install image download.

07:12 <sb0> the whole thing looks a lot like windows ME, except that the malware is now preloaded and officialized. the thing won't even boot without your name, phone number and date of birth. it's still easy to give it fake information, but I wonder when they'll start asking for passport scans

07:13 <sb0> the hardware looks nice tho ;)

08:48 <sb0> meh. it even has the computrace spyware installer built into the bios.

09:06 <sb0> and now windows will not boot AT ALL without a special activation key from MS just because I changed the UEFI settings

11:02 <sb0> and that, even after a "factory reset" in the bios of said settings.

11:58 <mumptai> i think you are subject to a deep misconception, you didn't buy that hardware, you just kinda leased it till it breaks

11:59 <mumptai> sorry :(

12:16 <sb0> with linux, there is of course a crapload of severe acpi bugs. with acpi enabled, the machine can't run for more than 5min before crashing

12:16 <sb0> and hilariously enough, loading the wifi driver makes the hdd fail

12:17 <sb0> this lenovo thing is pretty crappy

12:36 <mumptai> sadly this isn't that uncommon

12:37 <mumptai> sounds like my mainboard before the bios update

12:39 <sb0> i did a bios upgrade and nothing changed

12:40 <sb0> and according to the changelog, they only only "upgraded" shitware like this computrace thing

12:41 <sb0> hmm. for some weird reason, ubuntu seems immune to the acpi bug

12:43 <sb0> at least the worst one that causes a crash in 5min

13:15 <sb0> and seriously, you need this mess for the hdd to work at all. http://lxr.free-electrons.com/source/drivers/mmc/host/sdhci-acpi.c?v=3.8

13:29 <sb0> and it *never* works reliably, apparently due to data corruption on the bus

13:30 <larsc> you could try to reduce the max speed, if you can compile your own kernel

13:35 <sb0> I guess I could... phew

13:35 <larsc> live is hard

13:35 <larsc> ;)

13:35 <larsc> life

13:38 <sb0> unloading some other kernel modules that use the sdio bus also cause null pointer deferences

13:38 <sb0> nice

13:39 <sb0> *dereferences

14:00 <sb0> to its credit, at least the linux kernel manages to start userspace. the freebsd kernel crashes immediately without a single message.

15:20 <sb0> gee! after dozens of attempts at tweaking obscure sdhci parameters, the ubuntu installer completed without crashing

15:20 <sb0> the damn thing even boots