I have a feeling, that Windows 12 PCs will be just glorified smartphones with voice control as the default.
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.
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.
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
And Android phones will get a workaround to fuck over Google, the genie is out of the bottle. This shit will never happen to “all PCs”
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
Moat of servers run Linux, and servers are just computers.
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.
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.
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.
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…
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.
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.
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.
I’m honestly kinda sick of this. Sure, Google’s decision to try to lock down their devices to prevent installing unsigned apps is concerning for FOSS. But can we all just calm down a bit?
Linux isn’t going anywhere, and neither is hardware that supports it. Yes, is possible that Microsoft or even Intel (now that Trump has bought into it) might try to do some sketchy shit. But the open hardware market is starting to look promising. Look at MNT, System76, Pine, Framework etc…
I agree times are scary and everything is looking kinda bleak, but your best option right now is to completely boycot (as much as possible) Google, Apple, Meta, Microsoft etc. Just stop using their shit.
Buy up old PC’s, turn them into home servers and self host as many services as you can.
I’m confident GrapheneOS will continue and we will still have f-droid after 2027. But I’m an optimist.
Graphene? Meaning the OS where you have to have a specific range of devices that aren’t even very good for the sort of people who’d want an OS like that? I’d most likely be on Graphene already if it wasn’t for that annoying as hell limitation.
Just use Linux?
I don’t understand the question…
It is entirely possible to lock down computer parts to only run Windows and signed drivers. However, the sheer amount of available computer parts, open sourced hardware, widely understood technologies, and not enough monopoly makes this unfeasible for anyone to really try to implement (yet).
If Intel started doing Windows only, they would lose so much revenue from big corporations and data centers it would ruin them, and everyone would just buy AMD instead. Consumer market in computer sector is secondary.
For phones, you really do not have enough alternatives. You choose between evil and more evil. Think of it as Linux in it’s starting days - missing features that makes it unusable for the common folk. Linux phones haven’t matured yet, that’s why you have to choose between feature rich vs heavily degraded user experience, as opposed to minor inconvenience of not being able to run some apps.
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.
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.
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
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.
With Linux being the standard for server systems there is no way to force locked bootloaders everywhere without making the whole web and a lot of companies collapse. But I expect more limitations regarding desktop systems. It’s hard to tell at this point because it’s a complex issue, not only from an economical but also political point of view (Mass surveillance).
Your account is marked as a bot by the way, you can fix that in your user settings
I already did, but thanks nonethless.
Oh sorry about that, it’s still showing up as a bot for me but it’s fine on your instance. I think the information just hasn’t federated over to lemmy.ca yet
Interesting. Maybe it helps if I log off?
It might, but I think it might be a federation bug between our instances. I haven’t seen one like this before, but I’ll keep an eye out to see if it happens again / there’s a pattern.
You could also try setting yourself as a bot, saving, and then reversing it again. That might prompt your instance to send out the information again.
Thanks, I will try to switch it on and off again.
Don’t I own this hardware? Can I not do what I want with it?
No, because fuck you. Ownership is for pussies, do you really want to own what you buy? Just buy a new one if you have problems. my hope is that we eventually get to a point where you cant even build your own PC. Gaming PCs all built by Nvidia woth the latest Geforce built in to the motherboard. With a subscription fee to use it, im talking cheap like only $20/month. and then in a year it can sleep gently in a landfill. Oh and a feature that sets your house on fire and mangles your genitals. and if you try to turn that off, you get sued. it was in the TOS, just dont use a computer if that bothers you, shithead. the future is bright.
You own the hardware but not the software.
And that includes the firmware required for you to load your software.
Without software access it is useless until you are able to jailbreak it.
Which is technically a breach of contract at the very least and could be deemed IP theft by a brain dead USian judge.
So you can’t even commercialize your solution because capitalism works 1 way.
Beep-boop!
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