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System76 News: Coreboot and Linux Advances

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Re: System76 News: Coreboot and Linux Advances

#2
I admire the efforts to get coreboot support, and love their open hardware initiatives, but I don't understand why everyone has NIH syndrome.

There was no need for them to create their own distro. That is a huge expense just to reinvent a wheel that has already been reinvented ten thousand times. And in the end most of their users will probably just load up the one they use already.

Re: System76 News: Coreboot and Linux Advances

#5
post #4

What's the story with AMD and coreboot? Why can't AMD support it? Their whole AGESA is a glaring blob.

Neither intel nor AMD supports core boot. Community efforts to add core boot focus entirely on intel because of market share (although intel is also plenty hostile to floss in this regard).

Re: System76 News: Coreboot and Linux Advances

#6
post #2

I admire the efforts to get coreboot support, and love their open hardware initiatives, but I don't understand why everyone has NIH syndrome. There was no need for them to create their own distro. That is a huge expense just to reinvent a wheel that has already been reinvented ten thousand times. And in the end most of their users will probably just load up the one they use already.

Reinvent? https://pop.system76.com/docs/difference-between-pop-ubuntu/

It's a few add-ons to Ubuntu.

Re: System76 News: Coreboot and Linux Advances

#7
post #2

I admire the efforts to get coreboot support, and love their open hardware initiatives, but I don't understand why everyone has NIH syndrome. There was no need for them to create their own distro. That is a huge expense just to reinvent a wheel that has already been reinvented ten thousand times. And in the end most of their users will probably just load up the one they use already.

Reinvent? https://pop.system76.com/docs/difference-between-pop-ubuntu/ It's a few add-ons to Ubuntu.

The page you linked says it’s more than a “few add-ons:”

> To call it a re-skinned Ubuntu brushes over all of the features and quality-of-life improvements that Pop! developers work diligently to create.

Re: System76 News: Coreboot and Linux Advances

#8
post #2

I admire the efforts to get coreboot support, and love their open hardware initiatives, but I don't understand why everyone has NIH syndrome. There was no need for them to create their own distro. That is a huge expense just to reinvent a wheel that has already been reinvented ten thousand times. And in the end most of their users will probably just load up the one they use already.

> but I don't understand why everyone has NIH syndrome.

Many free/open-source advocates have been complaining about NIH syndrome for years and years and years... to no avail.

Consider, for example, the situation with window managers and desktop environments. Off the top of my head, we have Gnome, KDE, Unity, XFCE, Openbox, dwm, Gala, KWin, Fluxbox, Enlightenment, JWM, and Ratpoison -- to name only 12 of the remarkably large number available for Linux. I suspect there are well over 100 window managers/desktop environments for Linux actively used in the wild today. And that's just window managers/desktop environments.

The number of people who have complained over the decades about this proliferation is... quite large. The number of words that have been written and spoken in waste, and the number of flame wars that have raged on, over which particular choice is best is also... remarkably large. Search for "Gnome versus KDE" or "Unity versus Gnome" if you want to see some examples.

I've come to accept this is The Way of free/open-source software.

On the flip side, some people love all this variety and choice.

Re: System76 News: Coreboot and Linux Advances

#9
post #2

I admire the efforts to get coreboot support, and love their open hardware initiatives, but I don't understand why everyone has NIH syndrome. There was no need for them to create their own distro. That is a huge expense just to reinvent a wheel that has already been reinvented ten thousand times. And in the end most of their users will probably just load up the one they use already.

I was thinking the same thing. I wish they focused their efforts on making good hardware.

The risk is that some features like power management will only work well with their OS and not other distros.

Re: System76 News: Coreboot and Linux Advances

#10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reinvent? https://pop.system76.com/docs/difference-between-pop-ubuntu/ It's a few add-ons to Ubuntu.

The page you linked says it’s more than a “few add-ons:” > To call it a re-skinned Ubuntu brushes over all of the features and quality-of-life improvements that Pop! developers work diligently to create.

To be fair, developing "a few add-ons" requires considerably more time & effort than a simple reskin.
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