5 ms·

More fragmentation and more control over their own hardware. Having general purpose PCs that you fully own was great while it lasted.

by bserge 5y ago

bdcravens 5y ago
For many, their primary computing device has fully specialized for years.
1-6 5y ago
Fragmentation isn’t good. Open standards—-not open standards from one company—-is best. The shiny new computer will hold the title ‘fastest in its class’ initially but its longevity will be at the mercy of the company building it. Linux will get harder and harder to port over without jailbreaking.
zozbot234 5y ago
You can get full control over any Chromebook by opening the device up and removing a single firmware-write-protect screw. Try that with an iOS device. It's the difference between a useless toy and something you can actually customize to fit your needs.
- KingMachiavelli 5y ago
  That's only true as long as Google wants it to be true.
  - notriddle 5y ago
    Unless you have a fab in your closet, your ability to get customizable computers will always be contingent on someone else making them for you.
    - KingMachiavelli 5y ago
      Sure but there are huge players in the x86 space so no one company could lock it down to only run companies $X software. Also the supplier and consumers are separate, Intel and AMD make the CPU and other parties like Microsoft, Linux. make the software, and then even other companies sell both the hardware+software (Amazon, Dell, HP, etc.) If custom ARM chips make x86 irrelevant and are designed 100% in-house then we could have a situation where the only option is running that locked-down/walled OS or using an old, outdated hardware. Sure you can run our own code in the cloud but that's still under the eyes of the cloud provider. Luckily this probably won't happen. Computation as a product is a large enough market that there should be sufficient demand for an open platform. Even if the market didn't provide this demand, a large number governments would raise concern & intervene.
- sitkack 5y ago
  That is not true, there are plenty of boot locked Chromebooks on ebay. If the org didn't unlock them when they surplussed them, they will never run Linux.
  - zozbot234 5y ago
    They can be "deprovisioned" afterwards by the enterprise that was managing them, and these blocks will be removed. Just wait until they get around to doing it, they will because keeping devices enrolled costs them money.
    - sitkack 5y ago
      I sent mine back to the vendor as defective, they had no way to allow Linux to boot on them. They couldn't deprovision them. I would be extremely reluctant to tell someone to "just wait" to have the boot unlock just magically work. And how would the boot unlock get communicated back to these chromebooks? My warning is, don't expect an Ebay chromebook that is coming off of a big school contract to be able to boot Linux. It may be locked, and will only run Chrome.
      - zozbot234 5y ago
        > I sent mine back to the vendor as defective, they had no way to allow Linux to boot on them. It must be done remotely via GSuite, the stock Google firmware uses the serial number to check whether the device is enterprise-managed. And yes, unenrolling a device is very much a possibility.
- Dylan16807 5y ago
  Do newer chromebooks still actively ask the user to wipe them every boot once unlocked? Depending on vendor, maybe?
  - zozbot234 5y ago
    They do that when you enable the stock "developer mode". Removing the firmware write protect allows you to override that behavior.
- KirillPanov 5y ago
  Not anymore; that ended when they switched from Arm devices to Intel chips with the Intel Management Engine. You no longer have full control.
Fordec 5y ago
I do wonder what this will bring about in the hacker/maker community. When Sony had closed off architectures like PS2 there was first nobody able to modify it, but then workarounds were discovered and then people started repurposing superior hardware for new uses. There was a wave of PS2 fueled super-computing for a while. I expect new usages will come about for stuff like M1 that Apple never intended to allow.
pjmlp 5y ago
Back to the 80's. The PC only happened because Compaq managed to screw IBM with their clean room reverse engineering.

More fragmentation and more control over their own hardware. Having general purpose PCs that you fully own was great while it lasted.

by bserge 5y ago

More fragmentation and more control over their own hardware. Having general purpose PCs that you fully own was great while it lasted.

bdcravens 5y ago

For many, their primary computing device has fully specialized for years.

1-6 5y ago

Fragmentation isn’t good. Open standards—-not open standards from one company—-is best. The shiny new computer will hold the title ‘fastest in its class’ initially but its longevity will be at the mercy of the company building it. Linux will get harder and harder to port over without jailbreaking.

zozbot234 5y ago

You can get full control over any Chromebook by opening the device up and removing a single firmware-write-protect screw. Try that with an iOS device. It's the difference between a useless toy and something you can actually customize to fit your needs.

KingMachiavelli 5y ago
That's only true as long as Google wants it to be true.
- notriddle 5y ago
  Unless you have a fab in your closet, your ability to get customizable computers will always be contingent on someone else making them for you.
  - KingMachiavelli 5y ago
    Sure but there are huge players in the x86 space so no one company could lock it down to only run companies $X software. Also the supplier and consumers are separate, Intel and AMD make the CPU and other parties like Microsoft, Linux. make the software, and then even other companies sell both the hardware+software (Amazon, Dell, HP, etc.) If custom ARM chips make x86 irrelevant and are designed 100% in-house then we could have a situation where the only option is running that locked-down/walled OS or using an old, outdated hardware. Sure you can run our own code in the cloud but that's still under the eyes of the cloud provider. Luckily this probably won't happen. Computation as a product is a large enough market that there should be sufficient demand for an open platform. Even if the market didn't provide this demand, a large number governments would raise concern & intervene.
sitkack 5y ago
That is not true, there are plenty of boot locked Chromebooks on ebay. If the org didn't unlock them when they surplussed them, they will never run Linux.
- zozbot234 5y ago
  They can be "deprovisioned" afterwards by the enterprise that was managing them, and these blocks will be removed. Just wait until they get around to doing it, they will because keeping devices enrolled costs them money.
  - sitkack 5y ago
    I sent mine back to the vendor as defective, they had no way to allow Linux to boot on them. They couldn't deprovision them. I would be extremely reluctant to tell someone to "just wait" to have the boot unlock just magically work. And how would the boot unlock get communicated back to these chromebooks? My warning is, don't expect an Ebay chromebook that is coming off of a big school contract to be able to boot Linux. It may be locked, and will only run Chrome.
    - zozbot234 5y ago
      > I sent mine back to the vendor as defective, they had no way to allow Linux to boot on them. It must be done remotely via GSuite, the stock Google firmware uses the serial number to check whether the device is enterprise-managed. And yes, unenrolling a device is very much a possibility.
Dylan16807 5y ago
Do newer chromebooks still actively ask the user to wipe them every boot once unlocked? Depending on vendor, maybe?
- zozbot234 5y ago
  They do that when you enable the stock "developer mode". Removing the firmware write protect allows you to override that behavior.
KirillPanov 5y ago
Not anymore; that ended when they switched from Arm devices to Intel chips with the Intel Management Engine. You no longer have full control.

Fordec 5y ago

I do wonder what this will bring about in the hacker/maker community. When Sony had closed off architectures like PS2 there was first nobody able to modify it, but then workarounds were discovered and then people started repurposing superior hardware for new uses. There was a wave of PS2 fueled super-computing for a while. I expect new usages will come about for stuff like M1 that Apple never intended to allow.

pjmlp 5y ago

Back to the 80's. The PC only happened because Compaq managed to screw IBM with their clean room reverse engineering.