[allan_wind]

- HEADLINE: thunderbolt, amt firmware loader

- DESCRIPTION: The last laptop that I bought from Lenovo had a thunderbolt port, and I had to use that port to get 3 x 4k monitors to work. The hardware shipping with non-functional firmware. The only way to upgrade the firmware was by booting Windows. I was not sure if there were other devices with old firmware, so I spent hours waiting for a full OS upgrade. Dell was working on a thunderbolt firmware loader at the time, not sure if they released it by now.

Similar situation with the AMI firmware security issues (CVE-2017-5689). The only way to upgrade (afaik) is by running a particular windows installer.

It seems really dumb having to buy a throw-away drive just to be able to boot windows to upgrade firmware. Obviously, I understand this at the feet of the hardware vendor. I was going to suggest pre-installed Debian, but Lenovo will ruin that with pre-installed crapware.

- DISTRIBUTION: stable

- ROLE/AFFILIATION: entrepreneur