In the past I’ve had good luck running Fedora Workstation on Lenovo machines. both laptops and desktops. Recently I’ve started a project where I wanted a used laptop I could dedicate to the project. I didn’t want to spend much money on it because the project may come to nothing. I thought I was lucky when I was offered a Lenovo model 100s laptop that still ran windows fine for free. I accepted and set about loading F35. After I set the machine to boot from USB, I booted to a USB install. I was surprised that the machine only had 32Gb of storage but I knew that would be enough for the install and my application. I set the install to recover all the storage space and ran it. The install ran fine with no indications of problems. When I got to the complete the install part (name, password, etc) I quit anaconda and did a restart. The machine would not boot. I found out the the Windows boot loader lives in protected storage and I couldn’t find anyway to delete it. This machine had an empty M.2 socket so I plugged in a 256 Gb SSD and looked in the BIOS/UEFI to see if I could enable it. No luck. I knew it was a long shot, but I rebooted to the USB installer to see if anaconda could see the SSD; it could not see it. I removed my SSD and summarily delivered the laptop to recycling. Two things came out of this experience:
First: Is their a list somewhere where I can see what Lenovo models can be loaded with a new OS? I know they offer new models with Fedora loaded, but I won’t be spending that much money on this project.
Second: A suggestion for the anaconda team. It would be nice if anaconda could detect if a machine had a permanent boot loader or other impediment and provide a warning or refuse to proceed.