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IBM Operating Systems BSD

FreeBSD Now Runs On IBM T20/T21 ThinkPads 18

Posted by Hemos from the good-move-ibm dept.
Wolverine writes "IBM has finally seen the light and modified the BIOS on their T20/T21 laptops so users can now install FreeBSD without worrying about turning their machine into a paperweight. Although the official fix is listed as a fix for "System can not boot from a hard disk with partition ID of n5h.(n is 1 or greater)", they may have well just posted "You can install FreeBSD so stop whining". ThinkPad T20 bios can be found here and T21 bios update can be found here."
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FreeBSD Now Runs On IBM T20/T21 ThinkPads More

FreeBSD Now Runs On IBM T20/T21 ThinkPads

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  • Nice to see support for this, gives me hope that they'll supply a patch for the newer A20/A21 models that also had this issue.
  • They did not even need to test FreeBSD to have it work on FreeBSD. All they needed to do was RTFM concerning partition ID's.

    I bet this has cost them more than it would have cost to read the standard. Just that one sale mentioned up above is more than it would have taken just one person to find an empty ID.
  • This was not a matter of not enough testing.

    It was a matter of simply taking a partition ID number for their own purposes, an ID that was already allocated (to FreeBSD).

    Just as bad as installing a new network node with an IP address that was already taken.
  • I just noticed they fixed an issue once they were made aware of it,

    No, when IBM was made aware of the issue they created by taking an ID assigned to others in standards documents, they said "Don't run FreeBSD on the machine" not "Oh, we made a mistake"

    i don't care about the research

    Yes, don't let facts get in your way. The fact is the reaction of IBM was 'too bad FreeBSD', not ' this is an oversite, lets fix it'
  • 1) If they had disabled a linux distro (.5% marketshare also) Do you think the issue would have taken this long to resolve?
    2) The ID number that was 'just taken' *IS* well documented. To ignore 'industry standard' documentation is *NOT* how you design products. Even if you are only stepping on the sale of *ONE* unit.

  • You don't seem to be listening.

    Lets see what 'we' can agree on.

    The partition IDs are well documented. Do you accept this as a true statement?

    IBM makes claims about how they follow standards in the industry. Do you agree this statement is true?

    If you agree the above is true, then how did a 'standards following firm' manage to take a well documented ID for FreeBSD?

    And, please explain why IBM's ANSWER to the problem was 'it is not supported' rather than 'It looks like we took the ID. We will engineer a fix'

    Links for you to do some research.
    http://bsdtoday.com/2000/November/News342.html [bsdtoday.com]
    http://slashdot.org/bsd/00/11/29/1855248.shtml

    If you bother to actually research this, you will see that IBM stuck its head in the sand, rather than handle the situation.
  • As far as I can remember, the partition ID problem also applied to the X series. Now, I looked up the latest BIOS update [ibm.com] that I could find on the X20 (January 30), but it seems that this update does not address the partition ID problem. Does anyone know if IBM has fixed this in a prior update, or wheter they simply ``forgot'' to fix things on the X20 too?
  • Do you own an X series laptop? If not, why are you complaining already?

    Complaining because I might very probably be using one some day and I would like to be able to run FreeBSD on it. We tend to almost exclusively use ThinkPads here at work and when next upgrade of my notebook comes into question, an X series would be a prime candidate.

  • Yeah this little fiasco cost them my purchase of a t20 this time around...now they'll have to wait another year or so until i replace my current, happily compatible laptop.
  • First off, disabling a linux distro has nothing to do with it, Linux worked fine, only FreeBSD was affected. They even ship machines with Caldera, while not my first choice for a *nix os, it shows a little initiative. Second, why spend $10000 in testing for one machine, it's not good business sense....and if you look into the issue a little further, there are probably less then 100 people who've tried to install FreeBSD on the thinkpad, IBM is a business, if you don't like the way their product works, then don't buy it, they don't owe you anything.
  • No, it was an accident. But the little guy in japan who makes these decisions probably doesn't care about BSD much, not intentional though....
  • I don't understand how you people can expect a perfect product, you gave IBM time, they worked on a fix, with the amount of work that goes into making a computer, it won't be perfect, thats why patches come out for drivers, and bios updates come out......when is the last time you screwed up?
  • Do you own an X series laptop? If not, why are you complaining already? Anyways, Yeah. Nevermind.
  • ROFLOL!

    I myself can find more than 100 people in my mailbox alone!

    More to the point, if there were just "100 people", IBM would just have stuck to there "not supported" excuse and that would have been it.

    If they decided finally to produce a patch even though FreeBSD is "not supported" and is not part of IBM strategy in any way (Linux was affected too at first, but they produced the patch pretty fast once IBM Linux people got in touch with IBM Thinkpad people), it's because they effectively felt the bite in their pockets.

    From what I have seen on the few mailing lists I subscribe to every time this issue came up, that doesn't surprise me at all.

    Not that I, personally, intend to buy a Thinkpad any time soon. It was once considered by many FreeBSDers among the best laptops in the market, but Open Source depends on standards, and IBM's failure to follow standards is too glaring to ignore.
  • It is sad. FreeBSD has 15-20% of the "Open Source OS Market". Had they impacted any Linux distro that had 15%-20% marketshare, do you think it would have taken IBM this many months to fix the problem?

  • NetBSD and OpenBSD were not affected since they use different partition ID's, so FreeBSD was the only victim of this particular IBM screwup.
  • It's excellent to see large companies such as IBM supporting projects like FreeBSD in this way. Does anybody have anymore information on the specifics of the problem? Was FreeBSD the only operating system affected? If my memory serves correctly, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and NetBSD 1.3.3 used the same partition ID.
  • Yes, IBM doesn't have enough to test, getting '95/'98/ME/NT/2000 to work, devices, docking stations, pcmcia cards, printers, scanners, displays, dvd players, assorted software, modems (for each country they sell thinkpads), OpenGL issues........ in the grand scheme of things, a few machines that can't load BSD yet, aren't that important to most people, and it doesn't mean it will never work, but these things take time. Believe it or not, most of IBM tech support are probably unix people and slashdot readers, I bet they have a big linux box they all play on, and have their own internal linux mailing list.... you don't always see what happens behing the scenes.

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