With Linux being the standard for server systems there is no way to force locked bootloaders everywhere without making the whole web and a lot of companies collapse. But I expect more limitations regarding desktop systems. It’s hard to tell at this point because it’s a complex issue, not only from an economical but also political point of view (Mass surveillance).
Don’t I own this hardware? Can I not do what I want with it?
You own the hardware but not the software.
And that includes the firmware required for you to load your software.
Case in point:
Find a recently-ish manufactured used Chromebook/chromebox, and try to unlock the BIOS so you can slap a different OS on it
Source: it me 🫠
You’ll shoot your eye out, kid.
/s
Your account is marked as a bot by the way, you can fix that in your user settings
I already did, but thanks nonethless.
Oh sorry about that, it’s still showing up as a bot for me but it’s fine on your instance. I think the information just hasn’t federated over to lemmy.ca yet
Interesting. Maybe it helps if I log off?
Maybe try touching a little grass too
Thanks, I already did. Plenty of grass where I am.
must be nice
It might, but I think it might be a federation bug between our instances. I haven’t seen one like this before, but I’ll keep an eye out to see if it happens again / there’s a pattern.
You could also try setting yourself as a bot, saving, and then reversing it again. That might prompt your instance to send out the information again.
Thanks, I will try to switch it on and off again.
Beep-boop!
Companion (2025)
It’s called secure boot and it’s been around for over 10 years now.
Microsoft is already starting to lay the groundwork with their CPU, SecureBoot, and TPM 2.0 requirements.
Apple has been doing this for a long time, though there are ways to get around it on MacOS, for now.
On PC, the answer is Linux. For mobile devices, things are looking more bleak.
The situation is actually quite awful. I remember when TPM was palladium and there were apocalyptic talks in tech conferences about it being the end of general purpose computers. The idea that your computer could veto what it was used for.
The backlash only set them back a few decades apparently. Everyone forgot and now it’s a literal requirement for the latest Windows and in two months they’ll stop supporting the old Windows…
Next phone I get I’ll get fairphone and check the market for an alternative OS at that time. This might be the push that the Linux phone community needs to make it proper and good.
We currently need a KDE phone that they sell where I can buy a KDE phone and support them that way.
The pieces are coming together for Linux notably:
- SPA support instead of apps.
- Waydroid
- Core components such as calling, sim card actions, recording, speakers can be provided by fairphone via drivers.
I’m getting pretty sick of Google and other corpos locking down Android so fuck them, third best phone OS will have to do and I’ll do banking in the mobile browser page.
I just bought the cheapest fairphone I could get to replace my old pixel. Now it’s time to try proper linux on mobile for the first time. I’m excited!
Almost 15 years on Android finally coming to an end! My first Android phone came with Android 2.1 and now 14 shall be the last version I’ll ever use.
This is what happened when we allowed companies with a profit incentive to code our devices. Linux will always be free, and there will be companies that design computers for Linux, such as Fairphone, Framework, Furi, Fedora, and probably some that don’t start with F too
How does Fairphone design computers for Linux?
The Fairphone is one of the beat supported Linux Mobile devices
It’s been tried a bit before, but didn’t get through. The current situation with secure boot is worrying, because we’re one manufacturer playing ball away from it to become a reality.
I’d like to say there’s strong incentive to not do that, but it seems that logic alone would not stop this kind of push. And weirdly enough, even financial risk might not be enough, as we’ve seen baffling decisions made these last few months.
The main saving graces is that there are more than two manufacturer for motherboard, and as far as I know, patent lockdown and secrecy isn’t as big on PC hardware than on mobile boards, so it might be easier to escape such lockdown. But fully locked down systems under external control is clearly where some people wants us to go.
Users are getting dumber by the day. The people arguing back to me about “this is a you problem” when I mention reasons why device ownership is important is way too fucking high.
This is why you gatekeep hobbies. Keep the dipshits out so they don’t become the masses that ruin what you enjoy.
Exactly, if I like something I try to keep it on the down low, or only spread it in circles where I know it will be similarly appreciated, the moment a majority of the people are into something, that thing will now get subjected to external influences that require it to be liked by everyone and most people are mediocre so the thing moves towards mediocrity
It will creep in slowly since most people dont touch any settings on their computer after the initial unboxing and setup.
Big box retailers will offer discounts on them, much like how you can buy a Chromebook for very little.
Enticed by cheap computers, people will buy not knowing that any limitations exist. They’ll be encouraged to use centralized app repositories but they can still install some other stuff.
A year or two later, some things won’t be permitted, computer will make scary warnings when installing, but with enough clicking, you can get past. Until the day you can’t.
It will be a progression, but it will happen eventually. I honestly am surprised that computers dont require some sort of registration. I’m sure that will happen eventually.
Isn’t the serial number already on the box? So its already scanned into a database then you checkout? I know for phones at least, they definitely scan the barcode with the imei at checkout
Too late to do this for PCs. You already have Linux laptop providers and Linux distros supported by corporations. Most of the components have multiple providers. You will be able to source “unlocked” hardware from somewhere.
The problem with mobile is that the hardware is too complicated for open source projects to handle. Many have tried, all have failed. So far. Hopefully we will finally see something usable come out of projects like PinePhone and PostmarketOS.
Too late to do this for PCs.
let me tell you about this little thing called windows 11.
I know for a fact that this is exactly where compute is going, just look at the aggressive moves that MS has been making over the last 15-25 years.
it starts with requiring an always on connection, and ends with hardware lockout like Mac has.
sure Linux will be an option… but for how much longer? all the old devs are retiring and the new ones…god help us. they want to rewrite it like any greenhorn, and they want to use…rust??!
I give it 10-15 years before hardware locks out Linux, and Linux is dying.
I’m a Linux user btw, so don’t think I’m a MS or Mac fan.
Linux is dying
I definitely am not getting this impression, especially with the recent boost in popularity, but this isn’t my field of expertise. Any reading you can recommend to get an old man up to speed?
Just to add on top of that I think Linux will be good as long as Torvalds is alive. After that who knows what would happen. They might add binaries to mainstream kernel that lock you out and who can stop them ? We are lucky we live in times where we have a choice.
They might add binaries to mainstream kernel that lock you out and who can stop them ?
Who are “they”?
It seams you don’t know how Linux kernel is maintained. Linus is simply releasing the most commonly used versions of it. Nothing stops you from choosing a different one. If someone takes over the main kernel and starts doing weird things distros will simply package another kernel by default.
What makes mobile hardware more complicated than desktop hardware?
It’s a long history lesson. But the gist is that IBM made an architecture that allowed for modular LEGO style construction of computers. They were assholes and tried to make it lock down by keeping software secret and proprietary, but it was so popular that everyone else copied it and IBM/PC clones were born. Then the architecture became the standard, and everyone could make components for a PC with (more or less) assurance that any component made would be compatible and fit into (almost) any other computer.
Phones, on the other hand were born out of the necessity of being the smallest and most portable device possible. This meant bespoke solutions. The people who were chasing that format chose an architecture, ARM, that at the time required everything to be on a single chip. Memory, storage, CPU, CMOS, everything has to be on the chip. Which means exchanging parts is not possible. System on chip became the smart phone standard. Now, technically ARM doesn’t have to always be SOC. But it means two things, first is that every phone model is an unique and bespoke production that will never exist again once out of print. Second, it is a Titanic task to reverse engineer certain parts of it, firmware for sensor input is always unique, for example.
This means that FOSS is at a disadvantage. To make free open software for a phone means that, either a manufacturer is magnanimous and gives you all the firmware, or after a major effort to reverse engineer lots of pieces of software, it will be useless for the next model of phone. You either make your own open standard phone, which is a several billion dollar r&d endeavor. Or you’re constantly shooting at a fast moving target.
No one has created an open standard that allows small component manufacturing of mutually interchangeable parts for phones. Risc-v is close but not yet terribly financially viable.
It’s not any one platform that is too complicated, it’s that none of it was standardized. So once you have support for one phone completely done, the next model is already released 6 months ago and you have to start almost from scratch again.
Pixel was one exception to this, because Google would release and document all the modifications needed to run Android. Unfortunately they stopped doing this as well.
Contrast this to the x86 PC and laptop market and everything basic, like how to discover hardware, how to boot is all a documented standard. Even though on PC, you still have to deal with drivers for specific hardware.
Another reason why PC is much easier for Linux is that much of the hardware is shared with servers and for servers, Linux is absolutely a first class operating system, which all but some extremely niche hardware manufacturers fully support.
You need way, way better sleep handling. To get decent battery life everything needs to be able to go to sleep really fast but also be able to listen for signals from specific devices like GSM modem and wake up immediately. Without it it’s not really usable. Desktop PCs didn’t have any sleep functionality for a very long time and even now they mostly just disable everything and wait for a button press. Sleep/wake-up cycle can last couple of seconds without issues.
Mobile hardware also has more devices. I don’t have GPS, GSM, accelerometer or finger print reader in my laptop. When Linux was developed they also didn’t have cameras or bluetooth. A lot of this additional devices are not easily available like PC parts and require closed source drivers and firmware.
To make a usable mobile phone you need to figure out all if it at once. You can’t really release a phone without GPS or GSM and expect people to use it as a daily driver. With PC you can live without the camera or build in WiFi. I remember using USB dongles for WiFi and simply not having a working camera in my Linux laptops and I was fine with it.
Fairphone devs contribute drives to linux. Their phones are among the best supported devices for postmarketos and ubuntu touch and so on.
What are these Linux laptop providers going to sell if they can’t order anything from the factory that lets them change the software because reasons
Just updated my pinephone the other day. It’s not spectacular in terms of usability. It does the bare minimum at the bare minimum.
I’m saying that there’s enough laptop providers and enough different factories to maintain supply of unlocked hardware. You don’t have to worry about locked CPU/GPUs, only about locked bootloaders which have a lot of different providers. With mobiles it’s easier to lock because it’s all packed into SOCs and you don’t have as much choice for latest hardware.
I would say if/when PCs move over to ARM than we very well may see the same issues mobile devices have. There is a severe lack of Linux compatibility due to proprietary drivers, sometimes no drivers at all, no software support, and no device trees.
Also ARM is way less standard. While UEFI does exist on ARM, most just use some custom bootloader. And let’s not forget how ARM is protecting its Mali Linux drivers.
I have the ubuntu 25 concept installed on my snapdragon HP Omnibook 14
Other than a few software hiccups you would expect of a “concept build” it works almost perfectly and is now my daily driver. Actually getting the OS on the machine was pretty easy too, it has something akin to a bios. the process isn’t all that different.
The more difficult bit was getting the drivers working after installing the OS. no all of them have been released under license yet so some of them you have to poach from the windows partition. also audio required some tweaking.
Well yes many arm PCs do work, im just saying eventually they will be locked down
To all those people saying this will never happen because people wouldn’t accept or tolerate it ree living in a different reality, sorry to burst your bubble and faith in your fellow himans but…most people will just whinge whine cuss and then go do something else, people today have no guts in them to fight back and to lazy too, they expect others to do all the work for them, but wont lift a finger except to moan and whine about shit.
Long story short we are fucked, absolutely fucked, we…those that would/will do something are few and far between now, people aka the masses are used to being beaten down and being told to put up and shut up, just get on with it, so we few just have to look after ourselves, our families and friends, get through life best way we can, we be a small pocket of resistance but thats all sadly 🥺
Not the consumers so much as a ton of businesses that would have their whole IT broken.
Microsoft has really really wanted this to happen, but their attempts have failed to get traction, because it breaks just so many applications. The only reason people use windows is compatibility with all their apps, a move that breaks all the apps just doesn’t work.
Different with Android and iPhone where they managed to define the default position as app store and didn’t have to contend with “legacy”.
This is a very American mindset
It’s not going to happen.
Motherboard manufacturers are not going to start making Windows only BIOS.
Microsofts target audience isn’t the private user. It’s companies. The money they make selling their OS to private persons are table scraps compared to their enterprise licenses. Any such initiative would fuck over every single enterprise customer.
And just like that I’m all about Ubuntu phones now
Which devices are you planning to get at right now?
Either buy pine or try out userland for current but I haven’t completed the research yet
That’s probably why risc-v is getting quite popular in embedded stuff - smaller companies wanting more supply chain independence. Hopefully it’ll start to get more powerful soon for more serious computing. Its nice that stuff like debian now has risk-v version too.
Nahhhhhh that’s far more interesting in cause. Moore’s law has been dead for like… I dunno’, at least a decade by now? Bigger and bigger instruction sets have similarly hit their max return on investment. RISC-V is making a comeback solely because it’s literally competative now that frequency and even fancy inctructions have long since tapped out for performance gains.
Especially with GPU compute becoming more and more of a thing since DX11+. Parallel computation has become more and more of a well understood task with great ROI while increasing single threaded performance has been a wizard’s game for yeeeaaaaars.
It’s gotten to the point where some companies are aiming to produce competative RISC-V desktops and servers.
Linux on the phone has come a long way I hear. I have been meaning to buy one and see if it can be my daily driver. Google being shitty would definitely push me there
There’s also Europe, which has led the way in regulating against monopolistic power for Big Tech.
This is already happening, but it’s on an organisational level by policy. These policies can be applied to systems that follow trusted computing rules, which is most Windows 10 systems and pretty much all windows 11 systems. Google has laid the groundwork for this since the pixel 3 was released in 2018.
Since then, we have seen Google put the Titan security module in all phones and I’m certain Chromebooks are requiring TPM modules that serve the same function.
Apple has been doing the same since God knows when. Their systems have had unique chips that ensure that when MacOS is installed, it is only installed in Apple computers. There are ways around this, just as there are ways around the TPM requirement for Windows 11.
The trusted computing model, when fully imposed, can basically stop any applications from running that have not been given the blessing of the security team.
As far as I’m aware, the only people taking advantage of the technology are government institutions.
The fact that this can be wielded to enforce control over private individuals by our corporate masters is becoming a very real possibility, but the fact that it hasn’t happened yet, by any vendor, is, in my opinion, good evidence to say that it’s unlikely, but not impossible. Maybe that’s wishful thinking on my part.
In any case, the only truly free operating system left is GNU/Linux, with few other exceptions.
They’re waiting until all the products in the wild can be locked down.
Right now, they’re struggling to get people.to jump to Windows 11, and people are hoarding their old computers. They want all the products that don’t have TPM or its equivalent to be outmoded before they remove the mask.
Maybe. In my experience business isn’t that patient.
A TPM is otherwise a good thing. It can extend cryptographic capabilities and the overall security stance of the system.
But I digress. I will reserve judgement for now. Time will tell either way, and I don’t think anyone will feel like gloating if they start to lock it down like you believe they will.
Gnu Hurd ftw ! (I’ll see myself out)
Expect specialist “open” hardware capable of installing any software/OS to become increasingly expensive, while increasingly locked-down, mass-produced consumer hardware remains at current price. You only need to look at TVs for an example of this - try finding a recent non-smart TV at a reasonable price as the cheap models are all subsidised by the revenue from pushing ads into your face.
