Linux users accidentally bricked their new Samsung laptops ?

[Magnum]

Is possible ?

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Subject: How to destroy a brand-new Samsung laptop: Boot Linux on it
Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2013 15:06:39 -0500
From: DFS <nos...@dfs.com>
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy

"Motherboard DEATH alert. Suddenly Windows 8 doesn't look so bad

By Brid-Aine Parnell • Get more from this author

Posted in Applications, 31st January 2013 12:16 GMT

Linux users accidentally bricked their new Samsung laptops by booting
their favourite open-source OS on the shiny computers.

A kernel driver for the Sammy machines crashes when users start up from
an Ubuntu 12 USB key - although other distributions may be at risk -
giving them the dreaded black screen of no activity whatsoever. After
the operating system froze, users held down the power button to force
the laptops to power off.

In some unfortunate cases, when the computers are switched on again, the
firmware - stored in a chip soldered to the computer's circuit board -
refuses to start up the laptop, effectively ruining the product."


http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/01/31/ubuntu_uefi_bricking_samsung_laptops/




[dedndave]

seems like there ought to be a way to fix it

[Tedd]

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-cdimage/+bug/1040557

[Gunther]

Seems to be a Samsung UEFI issue, rather than an Ubuntu issue. It works if UEFI is disabled (beforehand), and the state can be reset by removing power and internal battery.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-cdimage/+bug/1040557

oh yes, the new EFI disks. Probably a lot of people with have a lot of fun with that technology in the future. I wasted one week to have a look behind the scenes. Now I've both 64 bit systems, Windows and Linux, on my machine and the grub menu is no longer empty.

Gunther

[Magnum]

Thanks Tedd for the link.

I went through and found out that it occurs only on certain Samsung laptops and had UEFI enabled.

I read of their getting their disabled computers going again.

In the meantime, I am not using any Ubuntu distros.

I have found that a program called Rufus is the best I have found for installing non-Windows o.s.'s on pen drives.

It successfully installed Puppy Linux on a 2 Gb Data Traveler pen drive on the first time.

[Vortex]

Sorry to hear this unfortunate system crash. Let's hope that the owner of those computers will be able to recover their equipments.