Microsoft is already starting to lay the groundwork with their CPU, SecureBoot, and TPM 2.0 requirements.
Apple has been doing this for a long time, though there are ways to get around it on MacOS, for now.
On PC, the answer is Linux. For mobile devices, things are looking more bleak.
Linux won’t be an option if the boot loader is locked. I think Linux is just about popular enough that options should remain but they might become reduced unless it becomes more popular than it currently is.
I’d imagine not every mobo manufacturer will play ball with whoever mandates a locked bootloader.
Right now, we have google and apple with a duopoly on mobile devices.
The grand majority of all laptops and desktop devices are using motherboards manufactured specifically for those devices (or device series). It’s not much of a stretch to imagine them adding restrictions to their already mature supply chain.
Sure, but there’s Tuxedo Computers, Framework, the PopOS guys selling PCs and many more. Those won’t go away.
Linux is heavily used on servers. Losing server sector means a huge chunk of revenue.
Linux is servers.
Hell, VMware migrated to a Linux base a while back, and with their new exorbitant pricing, large environments are switching to things like Proxmox.
The next ten years, VMware will be second string virtualization, even in data centers.
I’m not sure what’s going to happen, but there was a “BIOS War” in the 80’s,when IBM wouldn’t release their BIOS code, so other devs reverse engineered it. No reason why that couldn’t happen again.
The situation is actually quite awful. I remember when TPM was palladium and there were apocalyptic talks in tech conferences about it being the end of general purpose computers. The idea that your computer could veto what it was used for.
The backlash only set them back a few decades apparently. Everyone forgot and now it’s a literal requirement for the latest Windows and in two months they’ll stop supporting the old Windows…
Next phone I get I’ll get fairphone and check the market for an alternative OS at that time. This might be the push that the Linux phone community needs to make it proper and good.
We currently need a KDE phone that they sell where I can buy a KDE phone and support them that way.
The pieces are coming together for Linux notably:
- SPA support instead of apps.
- Waydroid
- Core components such as calling, sim card actions, recording, speakers can be provided by fairphone via drivers.
I’m getting pretty sick of Google and other corpos locking down Android so fuck them, third best phone OS will have to do and I’ll do banking in the mobile browser page.
I just bought the cheapest fairphone I could get to replace my old pixel. Now it’s time to try proper linux on mobile for the first time. I’m excited!
Almost 15 years on Android finally coming to an end! My first Android phone came with Android 2.1 and now 14 shall be the last version I’ll ever use.
It’s called secure boot and it’s been around for over 10 years now.
And the first iteration was much more locked down, only got changed after public complaints.
I think that’s because of GPL-2, which had allowance (unintentional) for Tivoization, which is what Secure Boot is a form of from what I read. I might be wrong on that, though.
GPL-3 fixed the Tivoization, though.
IIRC the first draft had the keys all controlled by Microsoft, with no option to use your own, and no option to disable it. Don’t think the GPL had anything to do with it directly, though it was people wanting to use Linux (and other systems than the one pre-installed) on their own hardware that complained.
This isn’t quite the same thing. I’d say locked bootloaders are the Android analog, and they are already less likely to be user unlockable than the typical PC (and the situation is getting worse).
This is what happened when we allowed companies with a profit incentive to code our devices. Linux will always be free, and there will be companies that design computers for Linux, such as Fairphone, Framework, Furi, Fedora, and probably some that don’t start with F too
By far most of work on Linux is being done by for profit companies
How does Fairphone design computers for Linux?
The Fairphone is one of the beat supported Linux Mobile devices
It’s been done before. ChromeBooks comes to mind, but there have been others. Usually winds up killing the outfit that tries it.
As far as I know Chromebooks only survive because of the educational market. Locked down devices are preferable in schools.
I won’t buy one, but I could see such systems becoming dominant in another 20 years or so.
It’s been tried a bit before, but didn’t get through. The current situation with secure boot is worrying, because we’re one manufacturer playing ball away from it to become a reality.
I’d like to say there’s strong incentive to not do that, but it seems that logic alone would not stop this kind of push. And weirdly enough, even financial risk might not be enough, as we’ve seen baffling decisions made these last few months.
The main saving graces is that there are more than two manufacturer for motherboard, and as far as I know, patent lockdown and secrecy isn’t as big on PC hardware than on mobile boards, so it might be easier to escape such lockdown. But fully locked down systems under external control is clearly where some people wants us to go.
Users are getting dumber by the day. The people arguing back to me about “this is a you problem” when I mention reasons why device ownership is important is way too fucking high.
This is why you gatekeep hobbies. Keep the dipshits out so they don’t become the masses that ruin what you enjoy.
Exactly, if I like something I try to keep it on the down low, or only spread it in circles where I know it will be similarly appreciated, the moment a majority of the people are into something, that thing will now get subjected to external influences that require it to be liked by everyone and most people are mediocre so the thing moves towards mediocrity
It will creep in slowly since most people dont touch any settings on their computer after the initial unboxing and setup.
Big box retailers will offer discounts on them, much like how you can buy a Chromebook for very little.
Enticed by cheap computers, people will buy not knowing that any limitations exist. They’ll be encouraged to use centralized app repositories but they can still install some other stuff.
A year or two later, some things won’t be permitted, computer will make scary warnings when installing, but with enough clicking, you can get past. Until the day you can’t.
It will be a progression, but it will happen eventually. I honestly am surprised that computers dont require some sort of registration. I’m sure that will happen eventually.
I wonder if PCs are getting fast enough to do everything that the opposite can happen. Older hardware and free software is as good or better than proprietary with new software. So, even with subsidy, they can’t turn the screw. The problem with mobile is the lack of a competitor, and the duopoly.
Even Microsoft could not break it. If Linux mobile can port over all android apps seamlessly or easily for devs, with lower fees, then it has a chance. Microsoft paid devs to put their apps on the windows mobile store but even that wasn’t enough.
Similar to windows, the more they turn the screws, the more people want to leave. There is a boiled frog effect but eventually lots of the frogs die in that analogy, turning off the cash spigot.
I had a Windows Phone, and almost all apps in their app store cost money. And were often of uselessly bad quality anyway. People didn’t want to risk it paying even 7€ for an app that will end up being crap.
I didn’t, but a friend did and loved it. I’ve heard the os was great. I’m not upset it died. Competition is good, but I don’t think Microsoft would have been good competition. I just wish someone else had taken the mantle.
Android started out great. It has jest become perverted into a tracker with less freedom.
Windows does require registration to any normal user at this point. Gotta setup a micrisper account
It’s not required, it just seems required to non-technical people (I know, potato/potato, it’s effectively required).
To any normal person it may as well be required, which is why I said it requires it to any normal user
Isn’t the serial number already on the box? So its already scanned into a database then you checkout? I know for phones at least, they definitely scan the barcode with the imei at checkout
Too late to do this for PCs. You already have Linux laptop providers and Linux distros supported by corporations. Most of the components have multiple providers. You will be able to source “unlocked” hardware from somewhere.
The problem with mobile is that the hardware is too complicated for open source projects to handle. Many have tried, all have failed. So far. Hopefully we will finally see something usable come out of projects like PinePhone and PostmarketOS.
all have failed
Here I sit, an eternal failure.
- posted from my Oneplus 6T on PostmarketOS
To be honest, I don’t have any hope. I just keep running. When I run out of places to hide, maybe I’ll give computers up and get into philosophy or something. If only 1M signatures carried the weight of $1M, we might stand a chance.
Where from here? Keep finding obscure ways to use computers freely, different chipsets, virtualization, remote access, whatever it takes. Fuck Microsoft, Google and Apple.
$1M carries the weight of about 1M signatures, which is to say… not much.
Has Fairphone failed in this regard, in your opinion?
What makes mobile hardware more complicated than desktop hardware?
It’s a long history lesson. But the gist is that IBM made an architecture that allowed for modular LEGO style construction of computers. They were assholes and tried to make it lock down by keeping software secret and proprietary, but it was so popular that everyone else copied it and IBM/PC clones were born. Then the architecture became the standard, and everyone could make components for a PC with (more or less) assurance that any component made would be compatible and fit into (almost) any other computer.
Phones, on the other hand were born out of the necessity of being the smallest and most portable device possible. This meant bespoke solutions. The people who were chasing that format chose an architecture, ARM, that at the time required everything to be on a single chip. Memory, storage, CPU, CMOS, everything has to be on the chip. Which means exchanging parts is not possible. System on chip became the smart phone standard. Now, technically ARM doesn’t have to always be SOC. But it means two things, first is that every phone model is an unique and bespoke production that will never exist again once out of print. Second, it is a Titanic task to reverse engineer certain parts of it, firmware for sensor input is always unique, for example.
This means that FOSS is at a disadvantage. To make free open software for a phone means that, either a manufacturer is magnanimous and gives you all the firmware, or after a major effort to reverse engineer lots of pieces of software, it will be useless for the next model of phone. You either make your own open standard phone, which is a several billion dollar r&d endeavor. Or you’re constantly shooting at a fast moving target.
No one has created an open standard that allows small component manufacturing of mutually interchangeable parts for phones. Risc-v is close but not yet terribly financially viable.
It’s not any one platform that is too complicated, it’s that none of it was standardized. So once you have support for one phone completely done, the next model is already released 6 months ago and you have to start almost from scratch again.
Pixel was one exception to this, because Google would release and document all the modifications needed to run Android. Unfortunately they stopped doing this as well.
Contrast this to the x86 PC and laptop market and everything basic, like how to discover hardware, how to boot is all a documented standard. Even though on PC, you still have to deal with drivers for specific hardware.
Another reason why PC is much easier for Linux is that much of the hardware is shared with servers and for servers, Linux is absolutely a first class operating system, which all but some extremely niche hardware manufacturers fully support.
You need way, way better sleep handling. To get decent battery life everything needs to be able to go to sleep really fast but also be able to listen for signals from specific devices like GSM modem and wake up immediately. Without it it’s not really usable. Desktop PCs didn’t have any sleep functionality for a very long time and even now they mostly just disable everything and wait for a button press. Sleep/wake-up cycle can last couple of seconds without issues.
Mobile hardware also has more devices. I don’t have GPS, GSM, accelerometer or finger print reader in my laptop. When Linux was developed they also didn’t have cameras or bluetooth. A lot of this additional devices are not easily available like PC parts and require closed source drivers and firmware.
To make a usable mobile phone you need to figure out all if it at once. You can’t really release a phone without GPS or GSM and expect people to use it as a daily driver. With PC you can live without the camera or build in WiFi. I remember using USB dongles for WiFi and simply not having a working camera in my Linux laptops and I was fine with it.
Too late to do this for PCs.
let me tell you about this little thing called windows 11.
I know for a fact that this is exactly where compute is going, just look at the aggressive moves that MS has been making over the last 15-25 years.
it starts with requiring an always on connection, and ends with hardware lockout like Mac has.
sure Linux will be an option… but for how much longer? all the old devs are retiring and the new ones…god help us. they want to rewrite it like any greenhorn, and they want to use…rust??!
I give it 10-15 years before hardware locks out Linux, and Linux is dying.
I’m a Linux user btw, so don’t think I’m a MS or Mac fan.
Linux is dying
I definitely am not getting this impression, especially with the recent boost in popularity, but this isn’t my field of expertise. Any reading you can recommend to get an old man up to speed?
Most of servers run Linux, and servers are just computers.
https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/system/clouddc/1u/sys-611c-tn4r is not running anticheat required software, bank webapps and windows store could start requiring: https://insider-gaming.com/battlefield-6-secureboot-not-enabled-error/
Just to add on top of that I think Linux will be good as long as Torvalds is alive. After that who knows what would happen. They might add binaries to mainstream kernel that lock you out and who can stop them ? We are lucky we live in times where we have a choice.
They might add binaries to mainstream kernel that lock you out and who can stop them ?
Who are “they”?
It seams you don’t know how Linux kernel is maintained. Linus is simply releasing the most commonly used versions of it. Nothing stops you from choosing a different one. If someone takes over the main kernel and starts doing weird things distros will simply package another kernel by default.
What are these Linux laptop providers going to sell if they can’t order anything from the factory that lets them change the software because reasons
Just updated my pinephone the other day. It’s not spectacular in terms of usability. It does the bare minimum at the bare minimum.
I’m saying that there’s enough laptop providers and enough different factories to maintain supply of unlocked hardware. You don’t have to worry about locked CPU/GPUs, only about locked bootloaders which have a lot of different providers. With mobiles it’s easier to lock because it’s all packed into SOCs and you don’t have as much choice for latest hardware.
Fairphone devs contribute drives to linux. Their phones are among the best supported devices for postmarketos and ubuntu touch and so on.
I would say if/when PCs move over to ARM than we very well may see the same issues mobile devices have. There is a severe lack of Linux compatibility due to proprietary drivers, sometimes no drivers at all, no software support, and no device trees.
there is another… but, it may be RISCy
Also ARM is way less standard. While UEFI does exist on ARM, most just use some custom bootloader. And let’s not forget how ARM is protecting its Mali Linux drivers.
I have the ubuntu 25 concept installed on my snapdragon HP Omnibook 14
Other than a few software hiccups you would expect of a “concept build” it works almost perfectly and is now my daily driver. Actually getting the OS on the machine was pretty easy too, it has something akin to a bios. the process isn’t all that different.
The more difficult bit was getting the drivers working after installing the OS. no all of them have been released under license yet so some of them you have to poach from the windows partition. also audio required some tweaking.
Well yes many arm PCs do work, im just saying eventually they will be locked down
That’s probably why risc-v is getting quite popular in embedded stuff - smaller companies wanting more supply chain independence. Hopefully it’ll start to get more powerful soon for more serious computing. Its nice that stuff like debian now has risk-v version too.
Nahhhhhh that’s far more interesting in cause. Moore’s law has been dead for like… I dunno’, at least a decade by now? Bigger and bigger instruction sets have similarly hit their max return on investment. RISC-V is making a comeback solely because it’s literally competative now that frequency and even fancy inctructions have long since tapped out for performance gains.
Especially with GPU compute becoming more and more of a thing since DX11+. Parallel computation has become more and more of a well understood task with great ROI while increasing single threaded performance has been a wizard’s game for yeeeaaaaars.
It’s gotten to the point where some companies are aiming to produce competative RISC-V desktops and servers.
Expect specialist “open” hardware capable of installing any software/OS to become increasingly expensive, while increasingly locked-down, mass-produced consumer hardware remains at current price. You only need to look at TVs for an example of this - try finding a recent non-smart TV at a reasonable price as the cheap models are all subsidised by the revenue from pushing ads into your face.
Such pcs already exist and are used by buinesses and schools all over… Mostly chromebooks and i suppose apple also fits that criteria.
But it would be very hard to stop a determined hacker who has physical access to a device and doesnt mind voiding any warranties or user agreements.
Most Chromebooks can have other operating systems. Many have a bypass, mine needed to have the battery disconnected from the motherboard while installing the os, then you could connect it back and be done.
yes most chromebooks if you own them you do what you want because google knows even if they did lock them down more someone out there would be waiting with a soldering iron to figure out how to mod them into running other things. But thats not the same thing as a company that buys devices for their employees and doesnt give said employees permission to open them (without risking their job anyway). The point being, the “demand” for such systems is already mostly met, normal PC users/ gamers wouldnt actually buy a product like that, because if they did it would just be a “Console”. You couldnt force it on users because there isn’t a monopoly of PCs like there is with phones or game consoles
Actually I should have said in my original post, Game Consoles also qualify, because the PS4/5 Xbox whatever, the last 2 generations they’re literally just locked down PCs with very specific hardware.
I have a feeling, that Windows 12 PCs will be just glorified smartphones with voice control as the default.
Good thing I transitioned to Linux mint (my first distro!) And I will never return to windows. I have some mild challenges in getting some games and programs to work. But I overcame some and I will overcome the others. I also welcome the challenges.
Bold of you to assume that they’ll let you to install Linux on your PC…
Okay I just read Debian’s manual about UEFI so I’m basically now an expert. And I feel like even if Microsoft refuses to sign, there should still be a demand for mobos that can either add new keys or disable SecureBoot.
Congrats. I love the green color. This is exactly the route I plan to do. I’m almost thinking about just uninstalling Win10 and switching to Mint right now.
I refused to play any games that relies on kernel level binaries like FortNight and League.
Linux on the phone has come a long way I hear. I have been meaning to buy one and see if it can be my daily driver. Google being shitty would definitely push me there
I even liked the idea I saw mentioned today where maybe it’s time for 2 devices.
One that just does phone calls and SMS.
The other is a tiny portable Linux computer that does everything else. Who needs android or apps anyway?
That seems inconvenient. Can Linux phones not do calls and SMS?
Calls and SMS work in more than half of the phones that can run Linux. Here’s a list: https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices
I’d argue that if it doesn’t do calls it’s not really a phone.
Edit: Also most of the phones are pretty ancient, the newest one is 4 years old, are 7-8+.
Most of them do do calls, though.
You can get a retro phone for like £15 or so. Mine even has a (shit) camera and a 64GB SD card to expand the internal 32MB (yes MB) storage.
There’s also Europe, which has led the way in regulating against monopolistic power for Big Tech.
Yeah, i’m pretty sure the EU wont approve of locking down PCs that way. I’m also pretty sure that Googles current moves regarding the registration of developers and locking down sideloading will not be seen positively in the current climate, where the EU seeks to become more independent from Silicon Valley. The EU has been adamant in their view that users should not be limited to one market on phones; i believe that trying to lock down PCs would lead to legislation forbidding that.
It’s almost already like this. In my country every single bank reinvented the wheel by creating a single purpose app which does what aegis does (otp generation from a seed) but with some bits changed (one for example “encrypted” the seed with ROT13) and with draconian measures like bootloader must be locked, adb must be disabled, and are using literal exploits to see if you have “forbidden” directories on /sdcard like/sdcard/magisk even if no file access is granted
Please expand
in order to login on the bank webapp, a token must be generated on a dedicated smartphone with all the google spyware installed, and the app that generates the token refuses to run if the bootloader is unlocked, or if the device is not “certified” by google
Which country?
it’s not almost worldwide? By reading all the forum posts with us nerds damning the bank app developers for the antiroot checks, it seems a widespread problem
We already have that. A reason they want to shift to ARM is so they can lock the hardware down.
