Your Computer Isn't Yours • Hacker News Board

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#651

Post by vetinari » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 5:26 PM UTC

zepto wrote: post #635

vetinari wrote: post #617

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rome wasn't built in a single day either. If you want to eventually get to your destination, you must do the first step.

That is a sentiment that I partially agree with. I frequently argue that iOS (for example) represents more than a decade of investment, so we can’t expect an alternative to pop up overnight. However using a Linux desktop simply is not a step in any particular direction. It is especially meaningless for non-developers to do if one of the other platforms just works for them. Steps in the right direction involve develop…

It works both ways: Windows (or Mac) are meaningless to any user, who can be served by Linux.

The first step in solving problems that corporate OSes have solved is identifying them. For example, one of the problems is stable/versioned/sandboxable/distro-agnostic ABIs and that is something that is being worked on and they are quite usable nowadays. The related problem is, that the corporate-software is ignoring them (how many conference solution support Pipewire for desktop sharing? Or Wayland in Chrome? Heck, VA in Chrome? Exactly... but whatever Apple comes with, they support within weeks).

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#652

Post by hunterloftis » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

II2II wrote: post #385

kybernetikos wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fifth reason - many many laptops have at least some piece of hardware or behaviour that requires fiddling to get to work on major linux systems. Sometimes it's power management, sometimes it's running with multiple monitors or 3d acceleration or the touchscreen, sometimes it's getting the touchpad to work properly or the fingerprint reader.... In my experience, there's usually something .

While this may be true, we should still be impressed by the number of laptops Linux operates flawlessly on. Very few people would expect Windows to run properly on a MacBook and far fewer would expect macOS to run on a generic PC. Yet people expect Linux to work flawlessly on almost anything thrown at it. From my experience, it does a very good job of this (at least in recent years).

From a technical perspective it's a marvel, but as a user, "works flawlessly on the device you have," beats, "mostly works, but with daily annoyances, on your device and many others."

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#653

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 5:35 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#654

Post by eternalban » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 5:36 PM UTC

drdec wrote: post #615

eternalban wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"What we poor souls didn't understand all these years is that" computing and information processing started out as tactical and then strategic components of military, intelligence, and industry. The central computing infrastructure ("the Cloud") and attendant closed/dumb psuedo-terminals (closed systems, walled gardens) is precisely the vision outlined in the 60s if not the 50s. Two unexpected events in information p…

> 2 - AI. This mainly threw a big wrench in the planned integration of Communist China into the Western system. AI enabled CCP to maintain control of the Chinese society, which was completely unexpected. Could you expand on this or better yet, point to some reading on the subject? This sounds like a very interesting topic.

Pure speculation on my part, trying to understand the nature of the relationship between Communist Party of China and Western power centers.

Back in the early 70s, when the deal that Kissinger and Mao shook hands on was made, there were no PCs, or pervasive networking and mobile communication and computing. It was always my speculation that the risky gambit of fast forwarding China's development and economy and freely transfering crown jewels of technology was made with the conviction that the process of integrating with the West would naturally create a power base in Chinese society that would push aside the Communist Party. Tiananmen ("June Fourth Incident") was a manifestation of this correct original prognosis of the planners of the deal, that it would cause political headaches for the CCP. A cultural instead of a kinetic overcoming by the West.

I think the consensus now in the West is that CCP armed with AI, pervasive networking, and the emergence of a digital society in the true sense, can stifle any possible organic formation of alternative poles of power in Chinese society. The only remining challenge to CCP were the Tech Mandarins (like the Senior Self Crowned Bozo in the West, a certain Bill Gates) and just this week Jack Ma was reminded as to who is in charge in New China.

And of course, Eric Schmidt et al. are now salivating at the "Chinese Model" and we're gonna get the same, regardless of what little you and little me thinks about it.

/end speculation

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#655

Post by bywaterstreet » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 5:37 PM UTC

> It turns out that in the current version of the macOS, the OS sends to Apple a hash (unique identifier) of each and every program you run, when you run it.

Hang on, this only happens on first run of the binary, right? It caches the hash afterwards? This statement is incorrect unless Apple are sending logs to the server (i.e. of every cache hit). Can somebody confirm?

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#656

Post by hunterloftis » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 5:40 PM UTC

amalantony06 wrote: post #636

ramtatatam wrote: post #175

I'm so glad I sticked to Arch Linux since early days. It felt wild in the beginning but now, after 10 years, I'm glad I took the risk. Yes, I have had a few sleepless nights trying to solve problems (90% of time caused by myself, remaining 10% caused by not reading wiki/docs/forum before doing stuff). And yes, Arch is not as polished and pretty as MacOS is but... I don't care, I do backend so I can survive without fr…

Or you could ditch Arch and go with a workstation specific Linux distribution like Fedora or Pop_OS that works out of the box with a lot of hardware. Gnome is more polished than the MacOS UI imho. Been using Fedora for a few months now and I haven't had a sleepless night yet. Everything just works.

The Linux desktop experience is sufficiently hardware-dependent to make single-sample distro comparisons useless.

As a counter-example, I recently installed Manjaro (Arch-based) over Pop OS because Pop was slow and buggy on my relatively high-end system.

Aggregate data can at least give a sense of how likely a given distro is to provide a smooth experience:

https://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=popularity

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#657

Post by frEdmbx » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 5:49 PM UTC

deadbunny wrote: post #16

Yet despite all the wailing and gnashing of teeth - both in the article and in the comments here in the various threads - people are still making excuses for continuing to use Apple/Google/Microsoft/et al products because the alternatives are a bit rough round the edges. These companies have repeatedly shown that they don't respect people's privacy and people have resoundingly responded that neither do they. I would…

Reminds me of Eben Moglen's "Freedom in the Cloud" talk.

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#658

Post by _rdvw » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 5:50 PM UTC

andysch wrote: post #633

_rdvw wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iodéOS [0] does not appear to be open source at all [1]. And only supports a handful of devices. Shamless plug, my ROM DivestOS [2] is available and takes source seriously with most scripts being GPLv3 [3]. Furthermore it appears that they are mixing incompatible license HOSTS sources for their blocker. And according to their FAQ the are shipping devices with the bootloader left unlocked, just like /e/. How awful. An…

Does DivestOS come with bootloader relocked? If it is the case what devices are supported?

DivestOS does not come with anything as DivestOS doesn't sell devices. Selling devices with outdated vendor firmware with known security issues would be immoral.

However on select devices you can successfully relock the bootloader with DivestOS installed, as it is properly signed [0] and enables verity on supported devices.

Other alternatives that support relocking are GrapheneOS [1], CalyxOS [2], #!OS [3], and RattlesnakeOS [4]. They too do not sell devices.

[0] https://github.com/Divested-Mobile/DivestOS-Build/blob/maste... [1] https://grapheneos.org/ [2] https://calyxos.org/ [3] https://github.com/hashbang/os [4] https://github.com/dan-v/rattlesnakeos-stack

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#659

Post by zepto » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 5:50 PM UTC

JAlexoid wrote: post #119

zepto wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firstly - this is a false equivalence. Sure a government agency may be forcing Apple or MS to help them spy on you, just as they could have compromised whatever else you are using. But when you download software from at least the Apple App Store, you are in fact protected from many kinds of harmful software. Let’s not lie and pretend that isn’t a real benefit to many people, even though there are serious downsides to…

The last hoax that I almost fell for was an ad in the Facebook app.

So what?

That’s a nasty communication you chose to receive by installing ad supported software.

It has nothing to do with security or really even computers.

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#660

Post by qayxc » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 5:54 PM UTC

daniellarusso wrote: post #465

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an "older" coder I get where your hinting at but your view on Zoomers in tech from your high horse seems very narrow and entitled. I'm sure there are Zoomers out there who can code rings around you(and me).

I think the parent just meant the surprise at the lack of enthusiasm, based on the ubiquity of the technology/device. Perhaps it is considered more of a commodity now?

> Perhaps it is considered more of a commodity now?

It is and it should be. What the white beards all too often forget is the fact that the generation before them would say the exact same thing about them (lack of enthusiasm, lack of interest and knowledge, etc.).

This is a story as old as time:

> The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households.

attributed to Socrates (469–399 B.C.)

How many 80s kids were into HAM radio or actually building computers (Ben Eater-style: https://www.youtube.com/c/BenEater/videos ) instead of toying with micros or basically playing Lego with PC components? Same difference.

Today's computers have reached a level of tight integration and complexity that simply cannot be grasped by a single individual anymore.

People keep whining about that when it comes to computers but happily accept the very same thing in other commodities like cars, clothes(!), highly processed food(!), hygiene and cleaning products (soaps, hair gels, rinsing agents, ...), utility grids, etc.

It's hard to get young people enthusiastic about glue or forging metals, even though both are essential to our daily lives - often in ways we don't even realise. Same deal, no whining from metallurgists or chemists.