How do I free my television?

  • TrueStoryBob@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    It is still possible to buy “dumb” TV’s. Tons of businesses need them for display purposes (like at fast food restaurants and corporate expos, etc, etc), but you need to search for commercial displays. Like this one.

  • grue@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    It should be a thing because most (all?) “smart TVs” run some variety of Linux, which, as Free Software, is supposed to guarantee the device owner’s right to modify the software running on the thing. However, in most (all?) cases, the practical ability to do that has been destroyed by subverting encryption functions against the owner in a process called Tivoization.

    In other words:

    1. No, it isn’t really a thing,
    2. It’s wrong for it not to be a thing, and
    3. You should be pissed off about it.
      • cecilkorik@lemmy.ca
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        2 months ago

        I mean, they did it with phones too. Android is just Linux. That was one of the main attractions, for me at least.

        At first, many people and groups supplied their own phone OSes. There was a whole thriving community ecosystem. Then they started to make it really hard, locking bootloaders and including critical pieces of hardware that didn’t or couldn’t have open source drivers (look up WinModems for a very early example of this technique, it remains really effective) or otherwise required extremely convoluted methods to access and the phone might function marginally without some of these fully functional, but at least you could still install a custom ROM on it if you were stubborn enough.

        But even that wouldn’t last. Nowadays they’ve made it literally impossible to defeat the security on most phones, in the name of keeping hackers and criminals out, but really a big part of their motivation is blocking these pirate OSes that let you actually control the hardware and software in your phone, doing criminally nefarious things like stopping them from downloading ads (the horror!) and preventing them from funneling all your data and activities back to Big Brother (how rude!) and worst of all updating it with modern functionality after they’ve declared it “obsolete”. The goal going forward is to sell you things that you don’t and can’t control, so they can shut them down or make them gradually more and more useless and make you buy new ones forever. They want you to have a subscription for everything including physical objects without realizing that you’ve been forced to subscribe to their regularly-scheduled-disposable-device-replacement-plan for no actual reason.

        They’re coming for computers too, or at least they’ll try. They want control of everything we interact with. For profit, mostly, but I wouldn’t rule out other motives. It’s a powerful thing when you have control of everything people see and do.

    • SorteKanin@feddit.dk
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      2 months ago

      The Free Software Foundation explicitly forbade tivoization in version 3 of the GNU General Public License. However, although version 3 has been adopted by many software projects, the authors of the Linux kernel have notably declined to move from version 2 to version 3.

      How come Linux doesn’t use GPL v3?

      • stinerman@midwest.social
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        2 months ago

        Linux copyrights are owned by many different people, so it would be prohibitively difficult to ask every person to agree to a GPLv3 change. Even if you could, Linus Torvalds is not a fan of the v3 license.

    • chingadera@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Woah woah woah, slow down partner, you’re not done yet.

      1. you should absolutely make as much headway on this project as you can, then share the results so we can all benefit.
    • rudyharrelson@lemmy.radio
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      2 months ago

      It’s interesting to see some of the back-and-forth on this topic between different proponents of free software.

      I listened to this talk by Linus Torvalds a while back and it relates to the GPL license used by the Linux kernel and why the kernel hasn’t changed to GPLv3. Apparently Linus doesn’t find this practice by Tivo and other hardware manufacturers to be an issue.

      • grue@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Yes, it’s a damn shame that Linus is weak on property rights.

        Because that’s what this actually is, by the way: violating the device owner’s property rights in order to prioritize the manufacturer’s temporary monopoly privilege over the software – which was only created for the sole and express purpose “to promote the progress of science and the useful arts” in the first place – above them.

          • oo1@lemmings.world
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            2 months ago

            I think he needs to work with HW manufacturers and chip designers/manufacturers to get drivers. They’re always going to have some proprietary HW and FW and communication protocols somewhere in their stuff. I think if he pisses them off too much he has to to bit-bash or reverse engineer all drivers for loads of stuff - which is never going to happen.

            • anomnom@sh.itjust.works
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              2 months ago

              Linux would need overwhelming market share in the consumer end to force chip makers to play, whether they like it or not.

              Windows might be finally doing a bad enough job again, to drive Linux adoption, but it’s hard to tell if that’s just Lemmy talking.

              • oo1@lemmings.world
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                2 months ago

                Linux doesnt “force” chip makers. It tries to collaborate , that’s the point of what Linus has been saying and doing for several years. I don’t know which market you’re talking about though, embedded - which is relevant here, or consumer PC. I don’t even think MS gives a shit about consumer PC, it’s worth next to nothing to anyone - maybe apple does.

  • LovableSidekick@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    I bet somebody’s done it. There are people in the Linux world who dedicate themselves to getting it to run on anything - a TV, a toaster…

    But it would probably be a lot easier to just run Linux on a Raspberry Pi or something and use the TV as a monitor.

  • henfredemars@infosec.pub
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    2 months ago

    In principle, yes, and I believe a few small hobby projects have attempted to do this and support specific TVs. However, interest in developing a custom Smart TV platform tends to get siphoned away into a project where the output from your actual platform is displayed on the TV rather than running directly on it. Simply, it’s easier to develop and maintain support across different models.

    Why would you develop a custom TV OS that runs on one TV when you could develop it for any mini PC and immediately support all TVs? You’d have to develop your OS to run on each specific TV model which will make it quite hard to reach a critical mass sufficient to attract attention from developers and users alike.

    The juice isn’t really worth the squeeze. It’s not like TV vendors are publishing detailed hardware specs and drivers. Writing or even porting an OS is hard. Look at the state of the Android ROM scene, and that’s about as good as it gets when some vendors are actually attempting to open source their drivers. The difficulty is much higher and the interest lower due to the existence of a viable alternative.

    With that said, motivated minds have done it anyway. You just need to have the right TV for it.

  • ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml
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    2 months ago

    Technically yes, you’d have to find an exploit for your TV that allows for installing your own OS.

    It’s not super feasible but it’s technically possible.

  • DontMakeMoreBabies@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    Nvidia shields with an alternate home screen have been a good solution for me? TV isn’t connected to the network directly, just to the shield.

    I’ve got RetroArch, Plex, Spotify on each of them - that sort of stuff.

  • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    It’s much easier to run a HTPC on something small like a Raspberry Pi, or an NVIDIA Shield. The hardware on your TV is probably the bare minimum to run its own smart features, and replacing the firmware doesn’t guarantee that the TV isn’t still phoning home with your data.

  • potentiallynotfelix@lemmy.fish
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    2 months ago

    There’s a whole lot of different smart TVs. If you want help, it would be useful to provide the brand of smart TVs as well as the operating system that it’s running.

  • pickleprattle@midwest.social
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    2 months ago

    Why has no one mentioned Projectivy?

    It’s a regular app, doesn’t require root (though it benefits from it). It’s free unless you want complicated parental controls (I pay for it but otherwise have no relation to it).

    I have a Bravia TV, and with it I no longer have ads, I can change exactly what apps show up, including hiding Sony apps, and can totally customize the whole window.

    Finding it was a huge relief for me, as there’s no point setting up parental controls for a small child when ads showing horror products show up anyway.

    Hope that helps.

    • WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months ago

      if it’s an app, it’s not n OS, and does not replace an OS.

      People want to replace the OS to get rid of forced data mining, forced updates, other limitations, and to be able to install other kinds of apps

      • pickleprattle@midwest.social
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        2 months ago

        You aren’t wrong, that’s all true. But also there are a lot of reasons to want to “free your TV”. The literal answer is that rooting your TV is difficult or impossible depending on the brand, and the technically true answer is that you can at least get away from the horrible manipulative interface pushed on you by the manufacturer without doing anything difficult. Better than nothing, IMO.

  • oo1@lemmings.world
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    2 months ago

    I’d think most people woud go for a cheap used ultra Small Form Factor pc or raspberry pi set up as an htpc. Plug in to either tv screen (via hdmi ) or monitor / projector directly. Never connect the tv to the internet - or even to your LAN if you’re really paranoid. You can arse around with a remote control a bit bodgy, or just use wireless Keyboard/mouse.

    I cant imagine spending the time to jailbreak a tv to get less functionality for more hassle - but i’m sure some crazy will have done it - good luck finding them though.

      • oo1@lemmings.world
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        2 months ago

        How do they if you dont plug them in to the network, do they have cellular, or some sort of PLC? Can they hack WPA? maybe they’re more powerful than i’d creditt them for.

        • jagged_circle@feddit.nl
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          2 months ago

          Cellular and your neighbors WiFi that was online without a password for about 3 minutes. It only takes a few seconds for them to dump all their stored history up to the mothership.

          Its also common for a lot od ISPs to have a hidden SSID for their other customers, which you cannot disable. I wouldn’t be surprised if your neighbors TV will mesh share their WiFi to your TV so it can upload the data about you. That data is why they sold you that TV at a discount. They want it.

    • ABCDE@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      I’m not sure they exist, but either way, just plug something in and don’t connect the TV itself to the internet.

    • Azzu@lemm.ee
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      2 months ago

      They simply don’t exist anymore. The only choice is to do this with a smart TV and never connect it to the internet.

  • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.works
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    2 months ago

    What I did was bought a “commercial” television that’s intended to either be put in a waiting room and tuned to Fox News all day, OR used as digital signage. It’s not quite an Arby’s menu board because it’s still obviously a television, has a tuner and such, but it has no “smart” TV in it and the backlight isn’t as “won’t survive a run of Breath of the Wild” like the TCL televisions my parents own. Then I slapped a Raspberry Pi 4 on the back with OSMC on it. Meanwhile I did replace my small form factor desktop gaming rig, so I have a Ryzen 3600/GTX1080 rig sitting unplugged under that television waiting for me to build up the gumption to switch over to it.

      • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.works
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        2 months ago

        And also to be fair I’ve got a Samsung with a mostly failed backlight that I haven’t bothered to get rid of. I could probably sort of partially half ass fix it, but…

        • starman2112@sh.itjust.works
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          2 months ago

          Over the years, I’ve tried three different times to fix the backlights on three different TVs. At this point, I understand that a failed backlight is a failed TV