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I Love Arch, but GNU Guix Is My New Distro

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Re: I Love Arch, but GNU Guix Is My New Distro

#191

Post by marcan_42 »

wiz21c wrote: post #99
marcan_42 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their approach is firmly stuck in the computing paradigm of the 70s and 80s, much like Stallman is personally stuck in the social narrative of the same era. The FSF and him refuse to change and adapt to the times. But since reality doesn't care about their refusal to adapt, and they can't just throw their hands up in the air and say nothing is free any more and you should just live off the grid and reject all technol…

God doesn't exist, that doesn't prevent him of being. The quest for freedom is, of course, an idealistic one. The important thing is that, in their fight to promote freedom, they meet obstacles. Those friction points reveal the lack of freedom. And so, although they don't reach freedom, they actually show that freedom is limited. IOW, refusing the statu quo is one of the way to change it. You should look at history a…

> IOW, refusing the statu quo is one of the way to change it.

And yet they aren't changing it. The FSF has had exactly zero success in changing the direction the world is moving in with regards to firmware and deep proprietary integration.

In fact, they've done very little for freedom in the past 10-20 years; most of the real breakthroughs have come from much more pragmatic people, such as those developing reverse engineered open source drivers for complex hardware like GPUs.

The FSF shows you how much freedom you lack according to their own bizarre definition of freedom... and then does amazingly little to actually improve your freedom.

Re: I Love Arch, but GNU Guix Is My New Distro

#192

Post by marcan_42 »

onli wrote: post #89
marcan_42 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The line between hardware and software has been heavily blurred in the past 30 years. The FSF continue to draw an arbitrary line where none can be drawn, and then say only one side needs to be Free. Since there is no longer any clear line, this gives them the freedom (ha) to deceptively do so in a way that is convenient to them and makes their followers believe they are getting some kind of special Freedom, when in r…

There is no nuance there. Without free software there is no software freedom. If blobs are allowed at all that is already a measure to have a system that works in practice, but in no way makes it the position against closed software and blobs wrong. The people criticizing the FSF here act as if Stallman were wrong about these issues because he said it back then already. While in reality again and again he was right a…

They aren't taking away Intel's ability to push updates to people's computers, because they never had that ability. What the FSF and that Linux fork are doing is taking away users' right to be informed about security vulnerabilities in their system so they can make the choice whether to trust Intel's update or not. By withholding that information they are effectively eliminating the choice, and restricting users' freedom.

Re: I Love Arch, but GNU Guix Is My New Distro

#193

Post by KingMachiavelli »

ckastner wrote: post #127
jrm4 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those two things are WILDLY DIFFERENT in real life. Broadly, "firmware blobs" are usually put there by companies and other entities that you can much better track (and sue if you have to). Dynamic loading stuff can come from any-darn-where. Apologies, but this should be really obvious.

The OP referenced CPUs and for at least AMD and Intel CPUs, firmware blobs need to be signed.

In theory a government could force AMD or Intel to sign a malicious firmware. That could be distributed as the normal firmware or used to target a specific person.

Firmware that ships with the actual CPU is a bit 'safer' because it has a lot more users and eyes looking at it (sort of). Depends on what your attack vector is.

Another aspect is that while this policy is worse for Linux-libre users, it is sort of a protest against needing these binary blobs. The hope is certainly that adoption of Linux-libre would result in AMD/Intel not having these non-free software requirements.

Re: I Love Arch, but GNU Guix Is My New Distro

#194

Post by marcan_42 »

marcodiego wrote: post #181
marcan_42 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The existence of that exception, the way it is implemented, the way they work with vendors to help them fit into it, and the way they do not require informing users of such secondary processors are all deceptive. Just look at the Librem 5. That CPU needs a blob to even boot (to train the RAM). Normally that would just be embedded into the bootloader. But that would make it evident in the build process for their boot…

Librem 5 is not RYF-certified.

You're right, not yet (I wonder why? Maybe they cut too many other corners, or the FSF gave up on the program?), but that entire nonsense was squarely aimed at gaining RYF certification and done with the FSF's blessing.

Re: I Love Arch, but GNU Guix Is My New Distro

#195

Post by seoaeu »

pxc wrote: post #146
otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. LTS is much more prone to breakage. LTS means you're porting yesterdays's security patches onto code that has been abandoned five years ago. And usually you have package maintainers doing this, not actual software developers. There's no reason to run LTS unless for corporate insanity purposes.

> And usually you have package maintainers doing this, not actual software developers. This is a weird thing to say. The package maintainers doing substantive backporting work for any distribution absolutely are actual developers. > There's no reason to run LTS unless for corporate insanity purposes. LTS releases also give you stability of behavior, which can be valuable even outside of corporate environments. Plus s…

> The package maintainers doing substantive backporting work for any distribution absolutely are actual developers.

The maintainers doing the backporting are affiliated with the distro rather than being developers of the software they're doing backports for. That is a big distinction because it determines who has to incur the costs of compensating them/recruiting them to volunteer

Re: I Love Arch, but GNU Guix Is My New Distro

#196

Post by marcan_42 »

marcodiego wrote: post #187
marcan_42 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't add much to a CPU via microcode. The space of what updates can do is extremely limited, with a limited amount of patch RAM and patch registers. It's designed to fix bugs. You're arguing against fixing bugs in proprietary software you're already running.

So why don't CPU vendor open source their microcode? Secrets... ok, let's use the ones which have no secrets.

Good luck with that...

Re: I Love Arch, but GNU Guix Is My New Distro

#197

Post by marcan_42 »

javert wrote: post #165
marcan_42 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those people are already running arbitrary binary code without the possibility to check what's inside, it's just that it was loaded before purchase. If you don't trust Intel's updates, then you also can't trust their CPUs in the first place.

Intel hardware definitely cannot be trusted. Probably "good enough" for most people, but it's honestly garbage, security wise.

And yet that terrible security situation has approximately nothing to do with the FSF's "no visible blobs" rule. ME could be just as bad running off of ROM, and then it'd meet the FSF's "Respects your Freedom" requirements.

Re: I Love Arch, but GNU Guix Is My New Distro

#198

Post by seoaeu »

mbakke wrote: post #189
raverbashing wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good to know, but still > where this Linux fork actively removes security warnings informing users that they need to update their CPU microcode Is not ok

I believe that argument is based on the same FUD that I addressed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29290087 ...at least, I don't see any such code in the actual deblobbing script: https://linux-libre.fsfla.org/pub/linux-libre/releases/5.15.... edit: since you called linux-libre a "fork", I feel compelled to point out that Linux-Libre is just the vanilla Linux kernel with that script applied. No more, no les…

I'm sorry, but this (and a bunch of other similar blocks) seem pretty intentional...

    # Do no recommend non-Free microcode update.
    announce X86_LOCAL_APIC - Undocumented
    clean_blob arch/x86/kernel/apic/apic.c
    clean_kconfig arch/x86/Kconfig X86_LOCAL_APIC
    clean_mk CONFIG_X86_LOCAL_APIC arch/x86/kernel/apic/Makefile

Re: I Love Arch, but GNU Guix Is My New Distro

#199

Post by User23 »

mindslight wrote: post #158
User23 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The FSF’s principles have always permitted the use of non-free software when it advances the goal of software freedom. GNU was initially built using non-free software. Given the pejorative yet inaccurate references to “religion.” I can’t help but think some people are deeply disturbed by the very concept of moral principles and and cognitive dissonance is forcing them to hallucinate that the FSF doesn’t actually have…

No, the argument is about the pragmatic criteria used to implement agreed upon principles. Bringing this back to concrete discussion, here is a quote from the Libreboot KGPE page: > AMD Opteron 6200 series (Fam15h, with full IOMMU support in libreboot - highly recommended - fast, and works well without microcode updates, including virtualization) > AMD Opteron 6300 series (Fam15h, with full IOMMU support in libreboot…

One of the nice things about the FSF's free software principles is that if you disagree with how they think you should use their software, they're not going to stop you. Nonguix[1] provides solid non-free support if that's what you want. In fact it has a helpful section on microcode updates.

The FSF even condones non-free software (in a rather dorky way) for people whose machines require it[2]. I understand the FSF's principles and am glad they hold to them so strongly, but I would use non-free graphics drivers if I were to install Guix. I do fundamentally agree with the principles of software freedom and I am honest with myself that I am in fact making a moral compromise. Similarly I'd probably compromise over CPU microcode patches, even though I believe I have the moral right to view, understand, and change those microcode updates if I wish to and am displeased that my rights are being violated.

I believe in this day and age where the right to repair your own equipment is under serious threat, the principle that we should be free to modify the machines we own as we see fit is more important than ever.

[1] https://gitlab.com/nonguix/nonguix

[2] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/install-fest-devil.en.html

Re: I Love Arch, but GNU Guix Is My New Distro

#200

Post by marcan_42 »

jrm4 wrote: post #111
marcan_42 wrote: post #27

> Guix System is an advanced distribution of the GNU operating system. It uses the Linux-libre kernel It's worth pointing out that the linux-libre kernel is developed under the FSF doctrine that "binary blobs are bad unless you can't see them". This has been taken to its logical extreme here, where this Linux fork actively removes security warnings informing users that they need to update their CPU microcode , becaus…

Lobbing a charge like "Arbitrary religious dogma" is pretty much the opposite of a reasoned look at what the goals are here. I find the approach interesting. The goal of the Free Software folk was never primarily to "provide the best information to the end user," it is to "preserve software freedom." Guix looks like a possible technical path to do that. Will it work? Will it cause harm? I don't know yet. Either way,…

There is no freedom without information. Freedom requires being informed so you can take decisions that you believe are best for you. Lack of knowledge restricts your ability to make the right choices, and thus your freedom.

"Freedom" through lack of information is the kind of tactic that repressive regimes use to control their populace. It has no place in an organization claiming to further and support true freedom.

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