The Intel Atom Bay Trail tablets have been out for a few months already, but none of the hardware vendors is providing 64-bit firmware builds for them, which means that you can't install any Linux distros.

When the first Intel Atom Bay Trail-based tablets hit the market, they only arrived with Windows pre-installed, but a bug in a feature called InstaGo prevented Microsoft from providing the 64-bit mode. The platform is also UEFI-powered, so running Linux in a 32-bit mode is not really an option.

In fact, you can't install Linux on any 32-bit UEFI PC, because the boot loader only supports 64-bit, and this is a major issue for people who really want to used their Intel Atom Bay Trail-powered devices with a Linux OS.

Important petition, small chances

Someone started a petition on change.org to inform the major hardware vendors out there, like Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo, and Toshiba that Linux users also want to take full advantage of their products.

"Millions of 64-bit tablets using Intel Atom 'Bay Trail' processors cannot run in 64-bit mode. This was due to a bug in Windows that has since been fixed. We are asking the tablet vendors to offer a firmware update that corrects this. When Intel launched 'Bay Trail' Atom tablets, Microsoft supported them with a new feature called InstaGo. At launch, it was a bit buggy. Microsoft couldn't support it in 64-bit mode. So, initially, tablets with Bay Trail processors shipped with 32-bit firmware."

"Microsoft has since offered Windows 8.1 Update, which fixes InstaGo on 64-bit. There's no reason for these vendors to not do the right thing and update their tablets with a UEFI64 firmware update," reads the petition.

The chances are small and it might be a known problem already

The chances that someone at one of these big companies will actually do something about it are really small. The petition platform is not all that helpful and very few things have been done with change.org. This initiative can only raise awareness for this issue and it's unlikely that things will change.

Users also need to keep in mind that this might not be just a slip up. It's possible that Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo, and Toshiba actually know about the issue, but they won't do anything about it because Microsoft wants to have as many platforms as possible available to deploy Windows 8 without interference.