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I never understood what Libreboot does on top of Coreboot. As far as I could tell it's a "distro" of Coreboot that just disables some things and maybe adds a fe
by r12343a_19 3y ago
I never understood what Libreboot does on top of Coreboot. As far as I could tell it's a "distro" of Coreboot that just disables some things and maybe adds a few patches.
All the heavy lifting is done by Coreboot.
- wrycoder 3y agohttps://libreboot.org/freedom-status.html https://libreboot.org/freedom-status.html
- newswasboring 3y ago[flagged]
- rhn_mk1 3y agoThe reddit discussion is severely out of date.
- newswasboring 3y ago[flagged]
- rhn_mk1 3y agoIt's the opposite. Libreboot removes parts of coreboot which don't fit into its philosophy.
- renewiltord 3y agoThese comments are usually downvoted but they're usually quite useful. Thanks.
- newswasboring 3y agoI'm doing it for the first time. Didn't know it will get this negative a reaction. I feel like the answer was acceptably worded. I even pointed out that I understand half the answer was wrong. I felt like it was in the spirit of HN.
- Kwpolska 3y agoI want to see opinions and answers from actual humans, not from a Random Bullshit Generator. If I wanted to see the Random Bullshit Generator’s opinion, I would have asked it myself. > Libreboot is a downstream distribution (or fork) of coreboot which doesn’t allow non-free binaries (“blobs”) Libreboot does allow some blobs, if there is no good alternative, and because a mostly-free board is better than a completely non-free board according to their policy: https://libreboot.org/news/policy.html https://libreboot.org/news/policy.html > and only supports a small number of devices, the vast majority of which are over 10 years old. That one’s probably accurate. > Libreboot also doesn’t “keep track” with coreboot; its most recent release is from mid-2016, whereas coreboot is updated regularly. The link we’re commenting on leads to a release announcement. The linked announcement mentions the previous release was 10 days ago. There was a gap in libreboot releases between September 2016 and May 2021, so the Random Bullshit Generator’s response is outdated by 2 years.
- newswasboring 3y ago[flagged]
- Kwpolska 3y agoFortunately, Random Bullshit Generators do not have feelings, and will not get hurt by my use of the (IMO more appropriate) term to refer to them. They are overhyped, and I do not think that posting their output in HN comments leads to positive and thoughtful discussions.
- newswasboring 3y ago[flagged]
- renewiltord 3y agoI like all my bullshit to be artisanal hand-made bullshit.
- haunter 3y agoPretty much +95% of the Linux distros are like this.
- Javantea_ 3y agoThat's not correct. Each distro has a huge amount of code in the form of patches, packaging and installation that they handle.
- MuffinFlavored 3y agoThink of the manhours + resources wasted achieving/maintaining basically the same thing in slightly different ways...
- matheusmoreira 3y agoNot really. Whoever created these distros had a specific vision they wanted to achieve. Debian is one thing, Arch is another. The world is richer for having both.
- ldarby 3y agoDebian and Arch are different enough that the argument isn't about them. The issue is the 100's of distros that could be replaced with just "install <major distro> and do apt install X" (or some other trivial thing like changing the default to KDE instead of Gnome).
- matheusmoreira 3y agoIf whoever is putting in the time and money to maintain those things thinks it's worth, then there must be a reason for it.
- arp242 3y agoYou can also replace that with "just install Windows", or "just use macOS". Hell, you use this for anything; "why make a new album, movie, or book when there are already thousands upon thousands of them? Yours probably isn't any better!"
- LukeShu 3y agoLibreboot provides: - Release engineering and testing. When Libreboot started, upstream coreboot wasn't doing releases at all; now they are, but they're still not suitable for end-users who want to use stable tested software: "Our releases aren’t primarily a vehicle for code that is stable across all boards"[0]. Downstream distributions that test on a specific range of devices (such as Libreboot, mrchromebox.tech, and vendors such as Chromebooks, Purism, System 76, ...) are still important to the ecosystem to provide stable releases. In the words of a coreboot dev: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33997880 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33997880 - Pre-compiled and tested binaries, because lots of users aren't set up to build their own. - A distribution of tools for more easily installing them than a sequence of long `flashram` incantations. - Loads of documentation. - Pre-configuration of common payloads, such as GRUB or SeaBIOS. And let's not forget that the Libreboot project does contribute to upstream coreboot. [0]: https://doc.coreboot.org/releases/checklist.html#purpose-of-coreboot-releases https://doc.coreboot.org/releases/checklist.html#purpose-of-...