• 5 Posts
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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 29th, 2023

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  • Yeah I understand that. And as I noted with the exception of firmware which almost universally requires running very out of date hardware I do the same. I’d like to get there with my phone but I haven’t managed it yet. I have written off firmware being FOSS because as mentioned. You almost always need very old hardware for that outside of embedded devices. And if you go down the firmware rabbit hole you probably have to draw the line somewhere. Platform firmware is the one everyone focuses on but what about GPU or NIC firmware? What about microcode or firmware embedded in the IME or PSP? Yes you can sometimes neuter the IME but that doesn’t apply to all CPUs. It’s just an unwinnable rabbit hole without going to a fully open computing platform.


  • Router yes, actually router is running coreboot and tiano core with OpenWRT. Does still have proprietary microcode though, and WiFi firmware. All my WAPs also run OpenWRT. I don’t have a modem, I have fiber. The ONT is probably running something proprietary but as far as I’m concerned that’s ISP equipment, not mine. Phone…not quite. I tried…it is running an AOSP rom…but going to a full Linux phone never quite worked out. That being said I was originally referring to my laptop and desktop which make use of no proprietary software or drivers. I do go FOSS to the extreme as much as possible. I just haven’t figured out the phone. I did try going f-droid only for a while but it made basic tasks on my phone substantially more difficult.









  • In contrast to most people here who talk about solutions to this problem with tooling often used for batch deployment what I’ll say is just my opinion on the matter. Outside of OEM or fleet deployments the advantages of nix just aren’t that apparent. You feel like your system was a house of cards but I’ve personally never felt that way and I suspect neither have most other users. Every OS to ever exist more or less behaves in a similar way, i.e. it’s mutable, so most users have only ever known this behavior. Installing software and then having to configure it in a software specific way is the norm across all existing computer platforms for all of time and for most situations it’s worked well enough. It isn’t nearly broken or painful enough for most people to care. Honestly if nix was the norm for Linux it might even scare away windows or Mac users looking to move. Linux is already a learning curve and completely changing the software installation and management paradigm(beyond using a package manager which can conveniently be explained like an app store) would not help the situation.