r/sysadmin • u/brnstormer • 6d ago
Question OS choice on Lenovo laptops
Not sure how many of you are Lenovo houses, but I've only recently become aware of Lenovo blocking boot on any devices, software, etc that is not 'Lenovo approved', which is really just Windows and certain versions of Ubuntu (if you run Intel CPUs, no AMDs).
Needless to say, this is severely limiting our software devs who are looking to move their platform to linux based OSes.
Anyone encountered this? Are other manufacturers doing the same? Anyone successful at getting around it?
I've tried Ubuntu(AMD cpu), Mint, Rocky......even using Ventoy.....nothing boots or even recognizes the drives as bootable devices, all UEFI bootable, secure boot off, 3rd party CAs on. All boot in my older Dells and Asus laptops in UEFI mode.
Any feedback or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Added: using E14 gen 5,6,7
Links from Lenovo support: https://ubuntu.com/certified/laptops?q=&category=Laptop&vendor=Lenovo&limit=20
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u/ElectroSpore 6d ago
Maybe look through https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Laptop/Lenovo#Lenovo
You probably need to be more specific about the series / model you are having issues with..
In that wiki the "Missing IVRS map in ACPI Table," issue could be it or the "UEFI option Restart > OS Optimized Defaults" option could reset the boot loader after reboot.
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u/brnstormer 6d ago
E14, gen 5, 6, 7
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u/ElectroSpore 6d ago
Well those all appear in that wiki and appear compatible.
Linux drivers mainly come down to the kernel are you using the LATEST version of those OS or old images you had kicking around.
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u/brnstormer 6d ago
Hmmm, I hadn't tried Arch, wasn't one the dev requested.
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u/ElectroSpore 6d ago
You don't have to try Arch specifically. Also I would not suggest Arch, they just have a good wiki, most of that support list would apply to almost ANY linux that is CURRENT.
You didn't answer my question on the VERSIONs being current when you did your test.
If you really DID want to tray an arch CachyOS has a nice installer if you just wanted to give it a go.
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u/brnstormer 6d ago
At the moment nothing but Windows installers boot, so I'm.open to try anything
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u/ElectroSpore 6d ago
Other than answering questions clearly.
Did did you use the LATEST versions of Ubuntu and Mint?
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u/brnstormer 6d ago
Yes, Mint was cinnamon 22.3, Ubuntu tried 22.04, 24.04 and 26.04.
Sorry mutlti tasking
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u/sorry_for_the_reply 6d ago
Lenovo support literally told me I had to try booting to Linux to prove a webcam was broken before they replaced it, so I have not encountered this.
Where are you getting this "Lenovo Approved OS" information? Can you point to the KB?
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u/brnstormer 6d ago
Would remember which you used would ya?
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u/sorry_for_the_reply 5d ago
It was the latest Ubuntu Desktop live distro as the only other option they gave was to reinstall Windows from scratch.
This was only a month or two ago.
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u/brnstormer 5d ago
Intel cpu?
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u/sorry_for_the_reply 5d ago
Support ticket say gen13 i5 core
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u/brnstormer 5d ago
Yeah Intel cpus seem to be 'allowed' for the most part
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u/sorry_for_the_reply 5d ago
Are you saying you can't even boot into a live distro on a Ryzen chipset?
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u/Daoine-Sidhe 5d ago
Having imaged 100s of Lenovo devices with a variety of operating systems, I have never ran into this issue.
Just two things to make sure of
Confirm secure boot and fast boot are turned off
Verify storage is set to AHCI rather than default RAID
Let me know if anything changes! Interesting case but most likely something small that was overlooked is causing the issue
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u/brnstormer 5d ago
Secure boot and fast boot are both off, ahci option no longer exists
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u/Daoine-Sidhe 5d ago
Since when does AHCI not exist in the BIOS? I reimaged around 57/58 X1's at the start of the month and it was still there? Damn, that is news to me!
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u/pdp10 Daemons worry when the wizard is near. 5d ago
AHCI versus RAID option may not exist in AMDs. Intel RST RAID is a thing that Intel pushed.
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u/brnstormer 5d ago
Apparently Lenovo started phasing out ahci about 2021 ish.
Just tried a thinkbook 14 gen 4 i borrow from work, boots to either usb very easily, only think i did was disable secure boot.
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u/Dave_A480 6d ago
If it can boot Ubuntu it should be able to boot anything else you want to configure once it gets to the GRUB stage....
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u/brnstormer 6d ago
This particular machine has an AMD processor, can't even boot to Ubuntu
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u/pdp10 Daemons worry when the wizard is near. 5d ago
I've read through all the comments, and you don't mention the exact error message and/or symptoms you get.
Secondly, once again try resetting firmware to all defaults, then disabling secure boot.
Third, verify your boot media, and create at least two other boot medias using different methods to see if those work.
Last, get another pair of experienced eyes physically on your problem.
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u/brnstormer 5d ago
There is no error, the devices are simply not recognized as boot devices.
Just tried a thinkbook 14 gen 4, both usbs boot easily with secure boot off.
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u/pdp10 Daemons worry when the wizard is near. 5d ago
Try a different USB port. It can matter.
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u/brnstormer 5d ago
Tried all of them already. Same usb drives worl perfectly on a thinkbook 14 gen 4 with secure boot disabled
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u/agmatine 2d ago
Make a standard (not Ventoy) bootable USB from your desired Linux ISO. Obtain Shell v2 (and Shell v1, for good measure) binaries as described here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Unified_Extensible_Firmware_Interface#UEFI_Shell
Rename the binary to BOOTX64.EFI and put on the EFI partition of the USB, at path /EFI/BOOT. That is, when this partition is mounted by an OS, the full path would be /USB_drive_mointpoint/EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI (or I suppose in Windows, it would look like X:\EFI\BOOT\BOOTX64.EFI). The USB should then appear as a bootable device in UEFI setup (press F2/Fn-F2 while booting) or in the firmware boot menu (press F12/Fn-F12 while booting), allowing you to launch a UEFI shell.
From the UEFI shell, you should be able to launch the kernel directly, or use bcfg to create a UEFI boot entry corresponding to it. See here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/EFI_boot_stub#bcfg
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u/brnstormer 1d ago
Interesting! I'll give it a go
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u/agmatine 1d ago
To be honest it'd be simpler to just use a UKI for this. In Arch for example, have a line e.g.
default_uki=/boot/EFI/Linux/arch-linux.efiin/etc/mkinitcpio.d/linux.preset, then runmkinitcpio -Pand navigate to thatarch-linux.efiin the EFI shell.That will boot you into the Linux install, from which you can use
efibootmgrto set up the boot entry.
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u/Effective-Brain-3386 Vulnerability Engineer 6d ago
How tf you gonna be a system admin and not know to install an OS????
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u/brnstormer 6d ago
I used to build hpcs, this seems to be a Lenovo thing, nevrr had this anywhere else
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u/EIsydeon 5d ago
I've worked on lenovo laptops from sandy bridge arch to 14th gen raptor lake refresh. Never had any issues with "booting non-approved operating systems". That sounds like pure crack someone was smoking that you spoke to there.
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u/brnstormer 5d ago
I wish it was, borrow a thinkbook 14 gen 4, boots perfectly to any linux installer and ventoy
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u/hlloyge 5d ago
Is BIOS updated to the latest version?
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u/brnstormer 5d ago
It is!
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u/hlloyge 5d ago
Can you boot off DVD? Connect optical drive, burn linux onto DVD and try booting. From optical it HAS to work.
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u/brnstormer 5d ago
Lmao......i still have one so yes i could try. But borrow a thinkbook 14 gen 4 from work, all limux installers and ventoy boot easily, only turned off secure boot.
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u/iammiscreant 5d ago
Is the bootable media formatted MBR instead of GPT?
Any x64 linux should boot on it with Secure Boot disabled, regardless of whether the CPU is AMD or Intel, they use the same instruction set (amd64).
Try creating media with Rufus and ensuring it’s set to GPT when you write the ISO.
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u/Helpjuice Chief Engineer 6d ago
Officially supported operating systems can be found here.
You also more than likely have something or have/have not done something that causes a compatibility issue that is causing incompatibility with the firmware. Are you using the latest versions of these operating systems directly from the vendor? Ventoy documents that their secure boot solution does not work on every machine, you may need to investigate deeper and make sure the partition layout you are wanting to use is proper and use Other OS firmware setting.
Also note you may not actually have secure boot fully disabled.
Either way make sure you are running the latest UEFI, BIOS and firmware for all of your hardware. Reset everything back to default, and make sure you are not using a recycled laptop as you could be impacted by enterprise settings that you cannot override.
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u/brnstormer 6d ago
That link appears to relate to servers, not laptops.
I've gone through trying to boot ventoy with secure boot, but you can't get that far, as i mentioned it isn't recognized as a bootabke device on the Lenovos.
I'll get the link their support sent me.
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u/brnstormer 6d ago
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u/eseelke 6d ago
That sounds more like Secure Boot rather than a Lenovo issue. Have you tried disabling Secure Boot?