Is there anything wrong with the dell xps developer edition? I don’t see it mentioned very often when Linux laptop conversations come up. Lenovo, system76 etc… but rarely the xps.
Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?
381–390 of 493 posts
Re: Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?
#382Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have the 7550 (15 inch version of the 7750), also with 20.04 on it (Dell shipped it with 18.04 though) and am also very happy with it, so +1 there. I also have an Android tablet and Android phone running LineageOS without Google Play Services, and piggy-back off the SO's Google Maps when we're going places. F-Droid is fantastic here and, where needed, proprietary apps (Slack, Discord etc) can be installed via Auror…
Dell Precision 7xxx line is easily the most advanced laptop with official linux support there is. Every person who bought it after I recommended this laptop was impressed. I've got Ubuntu 20.04 on mine and the only thing that doesn't work (yet) is the power button fingerprint reader which is a non-issue.
As a counterpoint there are a number of things I don't like:
* I can only have Intel CPUs and NVIDIA GPUs
* They've removed all but one external indicator light (there used to be four), and its behavior is completely useless (there's no way for me to tell externally what the power state of my machine is)
* They've killed the trackpoint
* This is the second of this series I've owned where neither of the fingerprint reader options are Linux compatible (no warning at purchase)
* The keyboard layout has regressed substantially - no more media keys, home and end keys are now fn-modified in the F row, page-up and page-down are also fn-modified where they used to be dedicated physical keys
* The e-port dock is gone in favor of a USB-attached version that occupies both USB-C ports on the chassis (and only provides two on the dock)
When I first received it my initial impulse was "if I wanted this level of regression per generation I'd still be buying Apple", but I've learned to live with it, embodying the grouchy sysadmin stereotype even further (in a hyperbolic way), much to the delight of my coworkers.
P.S. Why are you doing this to me Dell?!
Re: Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?
#383Earlier quoted context omitted.
AOSP/FDroid would be a middle ground for your requirements, no?
I've tried that too. But I work from home and not having the ability to use Banking apps on AOSP without a ton of patching and hacks that could fail anytime afterwards is an issue. Also the camera performance on AOSP is noticeably worse in my experience, and I'm not alone. To make AOSP "usable" for my life, I need to install the Play Store. At which point I've already lost and would prefer an iPhone for my privacy.
> To make AOSP "usable" for my life, I need to install the Play Store. At which point I've already lost and would prefer an iPhone for my privacy.
To be fair you don't need to, I use Aurora Store, they have a guest mode where you don't need to register any account.
Re: Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?
#384I'll buy a Fairphone with pretty high probability next time. No more iPhones. On desktop I was always a Windows user, but recently switched to PopOS. I try to use open source software where possible and after the endless stream of depressing news about working conditions and environmental impact of our juicy tech I'm ready to pay more for less to get (relatively) fair and open hardware too. Edit: Considering Linux ph…
In pursuit of an acceptable phone, I've eyed the Fairphone with its laudable stance on repairability in the name of eco-friendliness as well. Problem is it comes with Google's spyware (Android), a much bigger threat on privacy than anything Apple does. The solution seems to be to buy eSolutions Fairphone with de-Googled Android. I can live without free GPS navi but I'm wondering what to do about the few cases where y…
For a free GPS navi, OSMand does the job. You'll probably have to give up banking apps, while TOTP, by virtue of being a standard, has plenty of open-source implementations.
The contact tracing apps in europe interoperate, you can get the CCTG app from F-Droid and it works on AOSP (also includes vaccination pass storage). There are also others available.
Re: Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?
#385To be honest... None. It's a choice. You might wholly disagree, but recent events aren't enough to get me to switch yet, because I think the competition has too many tradeoffs. I can get my photos scanned against a CSAM database... or I can have Google tracking my location constantly regardless of what they say (as they've been proven to be misleading in the past)... or I can use a Linux phone and say goodbye to batt…
Exactly, I think people are just getting a little too worked up over this whole thing. Apple computes a hash of each image you upload to iCloud then check it against a list of CP hashes. Of all the things in the world to get worked up over, this is ridiculous. I get it, the mechanism they're using has apparent flaws, and maybe some whacko could somehow get access to your phone and start uploading things that trick th…
>Apple computes a hash of each image you upload to iCloud then check it against a list of CP hashes.
I don't think it computes a hash of the image, it's a tad more involved than that.
Simple hashing is easily evaded. They must be computing an identifier from the contents of the images in the CSAM database. This requires computational analysis on the handset or computer. If that's all that were happening that would be no problem, but of course there are management interfaces to the classifer/analyzer, catalog, backend, &c
The contents of the identifiers are purposefully opaque to prevent spoofing of the identifier database. I don't know what is included in the images; what if I take a picture at Disneyland with a trafficked person in the frame? Will that make it into the qualifier database? What is added to the CSAM signature database and why? What is the pipeline of hashesfrom NCMEC and other child-safety organizations->Apple's CSAM image classifer alarm?
>I get it, the mechanism they're using has apparent flaws, and maybe some whacko could somehow get access to your phone and start uploading things that trick the algorithm into thinking you have CP.
The CSAM analyzer could be subverted in any number of ways. I question how the CSAM identifiers are monitored for QA (I actually shudder thinking there are already humans doing this :( how unpleasant.) and the potential for harmful adversaries to repurpose this tool for other means. One contrived counterfactual: Locating pictures of Jamal Kashoggi in people's computer systems by 0-day malware. Another: Locating images of Edward Snowden. A more easily conceived notion: Locating amber alert subjects in people's phones, geofenced or not.
To my eyes, it appears we will soon have increased analysis challenges. Self analysis of device activity and functions for image scanning malware (for example) is slightly harder, we have added a blessed one with unknown characteristics running on the systems. Does this pose a challenge to system profiling? How/does this interact with battery management? Is only iCloud scanning, or is everything scanned and then only checked before being sent to iCloud? (this appears to be the case[X])
There should be user notification too. If some sicko sends me something crazy somehow, I would surely want to know so I can call the cops!!
All in all this makes me feel bad. There is not a lot of silver lining from my perspective. While the epidemic of unconscionable child abuse continues, I question the effectiveness of this approach.
I would not consider jailbreaking my iPhone but for this kind of stuff. I would like to install network and permissions monitoring software on my iPhone such as Bouncer[0], Little Snitch[1], although these are helpfully not available for iOS.
I feel grateful that I am unlikely to be affected by this image scanning software, I'm planning to continue my personal policy of never storing any pictures of any people whatsoever. I don't even store family photos this way. My Life is not units in a data warehouse.
[0] - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.samruston....
[1] - https://www.obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/index.html
[X] - Apple's Whitepaper: https://www.apple.com/child-safety/pdf/CSAM_Detection_Techni...
Re: Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?
#386For those who want to keep using their Apple devices, I highly recommend Nextcloud as an iCloud Photos alternative. I've been running an instance of it on a little Pine64 for quite some time now without any issues. Though I'll still the say the crux of the issue is that the majority of users _won't_ have iCloud Photos disabled, and thus have their privacy violated.
How large is your photo library / how would you compare NextCloud photos to Apple Photos? I'm starting with testing Synology Photos which has at least basic local people tagging (a must with small kids). Feels like a big tradeoff with all the self-hosted options. I've heard NextCloud is slow. PhotoPrism looks awesome but no mobile client (yet) which makes family adoption tricky.
I'm using mine as a general cloud storage alternative as well, so it's using a little over 1TB. About a quarter of that is photos. So not too huge, considering they're saving at full resolution.
Nextcloud has https://apps.nextcloud.com/apps/facerecognition which integrates with their CardDav, but I don't think my Pine64 with only 2gb of RAM would be able to run that.
Re: Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?
#387Earlier quoted context omitted.
What was being argued was exactly this.
I know what I was arguing, and it was specifically mentioned, so no it was not what was being argued.
> Scanning people's on-phone photos clearly has nothing to do with being a precursor to e2e encryption
This is what you were arguing. It is false.
Re: Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?
#388My understanding is Apple is not scanning photos on the device, but scanning photos uploaded to their servers: i.e. iCloud. I also understand this is the norm for most (all?) cloud-hosted file and photo storage platforms. I can opt-out having my photos uploaded to iCloud (which I do, but not for security concerns).
Am I misunderstanding anything?
Re: Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?
#389Earlier quoted context omitted.
The government doing this is one thing but corporations controlled by a few vocal groups deciding what you can do and what you are allowed to know is a completely different thing.
Again, this has always been the case in the US. Newspapers were owned by wealthy businesses with a message to spread, as were the radio stations, then it was the big 3 TV networks for a long time, now it’s the 5 big tech companies. The gatekeeping is a feature, not a bug. If you look to other societies, this happens there too. There is a symbiotic relationship between mass media and government at a fundamental level.…
Except in these cases, it's not the government asking these companies to take down the "misinformation" videos. In fact, some of these companies try to add "misleading" label to actual, official government announcements.. Trying to run a parallel, unelected government.
Re: Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?
#390Great discussion. I live in Apple's ecosystem, and this is even more compelling with our new Honda Pilot basically being an extension of our iPhones. I have been on three road trips in the last 8 weeks, and this feature was so nice!
I am still considering stepping back, switching to a Pixel 5 from the CalyxOS organization, rely on my wife's iPhone while on road trips, start using my GPU Linux laptop from System 76 as my main driver, and fall back on using ProtonMail with my email domain.
I did recently remove virtually everything from my iPhone except Freedom, text/email, Chess, Go, Music, podcast, and Safari. I think my phone should just be a phone, more or less.
I am not so disappointed with Apple's CSAM functionality as I am about their longer term trend. They are starting with something that has wide support, but who knows what is next.