4 ms·

I'm excited as well. But as an earlier discussion pointed out I'm worried that the transition might impact the openness in PCs, e.g. locked bootloaders etc

flyinghamster 6y ago
Yup. Finding out that Big Sur phones home every time one opens an application is a showstopper for me, never mind Apple's ever-changing ports and its campaign against the right to repair. We've also already seen that Microsoft considers ARM systems to be "special" enough to require locked bootloaders as well. Don't get me started on the mess in the smartphone world. I'd hate to see a world where the only "open" computing revolves around either Raspberry Pi-class SBCs or expensive datacenter servers, with no middle ground.
- my123 6y ago
  Windows on arm64 systems aren't locked down. Meanwhile for arm64 Macs, they aren't either. Yesterday, https://twitter.com/xenokovah/status/1339914714055368704?s=21 https://twitter.com/xenokovah/status/1339914714055368704?s=2... was released to run unsigned kernels.
  - flyinghamster 6y ago
    It's encouraging to see an effort like this, but unless it can become a first-class citizen on M1 hardware, it will be at best like trying to keep an iDevice jailbroken, or having a custom Android ROM that lacks important basic functionality like VoLTE. One can hope, I guess. If I could be sure I could run Linux without it being hobbled, and that Apple wouldn't pull the rug out from under me, I could actually see myself adding a Mac Mini to the stable. Edit: > Windows on arm64 systems aren't locked down. Has this changed? I recall that on ARM, Microsoft requires that UEFI Secure Boot be enabled, cannot be disabled, and cannot load custom keys. So, you could boot Linux as long as it's been "blessed" by Microsoft, assuming they don't pull the rug out, much like the leaving Secure Boot enabled on an x86 PC (except on a PC you can usually load your own keys). https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/01/windows-8s-locked-bootloaders-much-ado-about-nothing-or-the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/01/windo...
    - my123 6y ago
      That was a restriction for 32-bit Arm Windows devices, which were indeed locked down. (I ended up breaking the Secure Boot implementation for Windows RT devices later on, and they didn't bother to fix it) For 64-bit Arm Windows devices, they had the security policies of a conventional PC since the very beginning.
      - flyinghamster 6y ago
        Thanks for clearing that up for me. I've long viewed that as one of the storm clouds on the horizon, as it was.
    - salawat 6y ago
      Alternate source, though may be dated to around the time of v2.2 of the UEFI spec. https://www.happyassassin.net/posts/2014/01/25/uefi-boot-how-does-that-actually-work-then/ https://www.happyassassin.net/posts/2014/01/25/uefi-boot-how... I find it funny that almost all the real gripes with user freedom infringement actually tend to come as a result of Microsoft or other big players getting their fingers into a hardware platform.
    - saagarjha 6y ago
      Not quite, since Apple actively works against jailbreaks on iOS. On macOS they have provided an actual path for code execution to boot alternate OSes.
  - pjmlp 6y ago
    When Windows 10X gets release it might be different, as the original before COVID happened was for it to be the introduction of Win32 sandboxing as well. Now with Reunion merging both worlds, and Windows 10X only planned for 2021, it might be a different story.
    - my123 6y ago
      Windows 10X is launching for Intel SoCs first, hopefully without locked BLs.
boudin 6y ago
There is already a few ARM laptops that are quite open (like the pine64 ones). There's also ARM boards like the Raspberry PI. I hope that if there's more beefy CPUs and SoCs we'll see those poping up in similar devices as well.
- kube-system 6y ago
  Sort of. Even the Pi is not entirely open-source. The Broadcom SOC relies on some closed-source binaries.

flyinghamster 6y ago

Yup. Finding out that Big Sur phones home every time one opens an application is a showstopper for me, never mind Apple's ever-changing ports and its campaign against the right to repair. We've also already seen that Microsoft considers ARM systems to be "special" enough to require locked bootloaders as well. Don't get me started on the mess in the smartphone world. I'd hate to see a world where the only "open" computing revolves around either Raspberry Pi-class SBCs or expensive datacenter servers, with no middle ground.

my123 6y ago
Windows on arm64 systems aren't locked down. Meanwhile for arm64 Macs, they aren't either. Yesterday, https://twitter.com/xenokovah/status/1339914714055368704?s=21 https://twitter.com/xenokovah/status/1339914714055368704?s=2... was released to run unsigned kernels.
- flyinghamster 6y ago
  It's encouraging to see an effort like this, but unless it can become a first-class citizen on M1 hardware, it will be at best like trying to keep an iDevice jailbroken, or having a custom Android ROM that lacks important basic functionality like VoLTE. One can hope, I guess. If I could be sure I could run Linux without it being hobbled, and that Apple wouldn't pull the rug out from under me, I could actually see myself adding a Mac Mini to the stable. Edit: > Windows on arm64 systems aren't locked down. Has this changed? I recall that on ARM, Microsoft requires that UEFI Secure Boot be enabled, cannot be disabled, and cannot load custom keys. So, you could boot Linux as long as it's been "blessed" by Microsoft, assuming they don't pull the rug out, much like the leaving Secure Boot enabled on an x86 PC (except on a PC you can usually load your own keys). https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/01/windows-8s-locked-bootloaders-much-ado-about-nothing-or-the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/01/windo...
  - my123 6y ago
    That was a restriction for 32-bit Arm Windows devices, which were indeed locked down. (I ended up breaking the Secure Boot implementation for Windows RT devices later on, and they didn't bother to fix it) For 64-bit Arm Windows devices, they had the security policies of a conventional PC since the very beginning.
    - flyinghamster 6y ago
      Thanks for clearing that up for me. I've long viewed that as one of the storm clouds on the horizon, as it was.
  - salawat 6y ago
    Alternate source, though may be dated to around the time of v2.2 of the UEFI spec. https://www.happyassassin.net/posts/2014/01/25/uefi-boot-how-does-that-actually-work-then/ https://www.happyassassin.net/posts/2014/01/25/uefi-boot-how... I find it funny that almost all the real gripes with user freedom infringement actually tend to come as a result of Microsoft or other big players getting their fingers into a hardware platform.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    Not quite, since Apple actively works against jailbreaks on iOS. On macOS they have provided an actual path for code execution to boot alternate OSes.
- pjmlp 6y ago
  When Windows 10X gets release it might be different, as the original before COVID happened was for it to be the introduction of Win32 sandboxing as well. Now with Reunion merging both worlds, and Windows 10X only planned for 2021, it might be a different story.
  - my123 6y ago
    Windows 10X is launching for Intel SoCs first, hopefully without locked BLs.

boudin 6y ago

There is already a few ARM laptops that are quite open (like the pine64 ones). There's also ARM boards like the Raspberry PI. I hope that if there's more beefy CPUs and SoCs we'll see those poping up in similar devices as well.

kube-system 6y ago
Sort of. Even the Pi is not entirely open-source. The Broadcom SOC relies on some closed-source binaries.