I got the T460 refurbished and I really didn’t want to run Windows 10 on it. I last used Linux for any real length of time a good 20 years ago, so I’m pretty inexperienced with it at this point and I had to figure out how to install it myself.
They made it unreasonably difficult to first install an OS from a USB stick. I had to go into the BIOS, turn UEFI to legacy, turn off secure boot, reboot to boot from the USB stick, install Mint, then turn legacy back to UEFI to get it to boot from the hard drive. This took about 2 hours of trying to figure it out by doing a lot of forums reading.
I do not blame the Mint community or the Linux community as a whole. There is absolutely no reason that it should have been that hard to install Mint on that notebook.
I don’t even think getting into the BIOS once time should be necessary, but changing a BIOS setting so you can install the OS and changing it back so you can run the OS off the internal drive is just ridiculous and I find it hard to believe Lenovo couldn’t have just made it easier. I’m fairly convinced this was intentional on their part.
I’m not an IT professional or anything, but I know enough to figure this stuff out with effort, but it shouldn’t have taken that effort. It should have been almost plug-and-play. This is 2024. The notebook isn’t even 10 years old.
Is there actually a good reason for this or are they just kissing Microsoft’s ass?
This sounds like it was strictly the fault of the USB load. If you make a UEFI USB (you should use Ventoy, it’s great btw) all you would need to do is shut off Secure Boot and install.
Most bootable drives don’t support Secure Boot. You turn it off, do the install, and turn it back on if you want it. I personally just leave it off.
Outside of those caveats everything you described is industry-standard stuff. Nothing to do with Lenovo.