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Returning to Free Software: A Guide
- catmanjan 13y agoGNU/Linux really isn't an option for laptops until the battery life improves. Yes, yes I know PowerTOP helps, but 3 hours under even the most minimal distro vs. 8 hours under Windows is unacceptable. (Note: I know it's the hardware manufacturers fault for not releasing power related drivers, but as if the end user cares!)
- mrpdaemon 13y agoIt does take some tinkering to get things setup right, but on my Asus Zenbook UX32VD I do get ~5 hours of battery life for simple usage, which is the same as the advertised battery life with Windows. This is running Ubuntu 13.04 with the latest linux kernel (3.9.6 atm), laptop-mode, bbswitch to turn off the discrete graphics card, power saving mode on for the wifi card etc. IMO its paramount to be running recent kernels, both for good battery life as well as compatibility with the latest hardware.
- eikenberry 13y agoAgreed. With just a bit of tweaking I have my x220 using around 8 watts with average use, getting 10+ hours. Windows only gets around 8 hours on the same system. This looks like a post from years ago. I'm suspicious that this guy is just a windows apologist looking to spread FUD.
- nexneo 13y agoWhat kind of tweaking you suggest?
- phaer 13y agopowertop[1] gives you some good suggestions. And the easiest "trick" of course: reduce screen brightness :) [1]: https://01.org/powertop/ https://01.org/powertop/
- dotemacs 13y agoI bought Samsung's 900X and installed FreeBSD on it. I could tweak it and get 4+ hours of play on it. But it involved tweaking with the config params a lot and worrying what I'm about to run, will it have enough power, what settings to turn on, what to disable. So yes, I'd like to have a good laptop, with a long battery life that supports open source/free software OSs but I'd also like some convenience too.
- phaer 13y agoI have got an x200 too, and i am between 5 and 10 hours depending mainly on screen brightness and software run. I have no idea how much i'd get on windows, as i never used it on this hardware.
- catmanjan 13y agoI have an IBM x60, x61 tablet and several recent Asus lappys, all had terrible battery life out of the box under several different distros. After fiddling they all had _better_ life but nowhere near what I got under xp 7 or 8. It's great if the HN community can config their OSes to get every watt out of it, but the truth is the lay man doesn't know, doesn't care and doesn't want to know how to do that...
- tripzilch 13y ago> It's great if the HN community can config their OSes to get every watt out of it, but the truth is the lay man doesn't know, doesn't care and doesn't want to know how to do that... How is this even relevant? We are the HN community, right? Where are these lay men? I don't think the OP as targeted at lay men. I'm starting to think all this talk of "the end user doesn't care" or "the lay man doesn't want to know" are all just euphemisms for "I want it to be easier for me". Which is fine, but then just admit it, instead of hiding behind a hypothetical end-user.
- Sprint 13y agoRunning Linux on my eee gives me longer battery life than Windows. Yay, anecdotes!
- andrewflnr 13y agoIf you want another one, my trimmed-down Arch install gets better battery life than Windows on my Lenovo T410. Around 6 hours versus 4 with the extended batter, without a lot of nitpicky optimizations.
- tome 13y agoDoes anyone have a pointer to Linux laptop tuning-related advice? I've got a Dell Vostro V131. I never run Windows on the battery and I didn't know that four hours was short!
- keithpeter 13y agoWhich hardware is that? I get roughly same battery life from the original Windows Vista and from CentOS on this Thinkpad x200s. As you say it is question of drivers/hardware control so building up knowledge of the machines to avoid would help as the original article suggested. Older hardware usually means more support in GNU/Linux because there is time for the drivers to catch up.
- johntrollvolta 13y agoThis is a crock. The majority of hardware is on a par with or batter than Windows these days, even out of the box. It's mostly just the open/reverse engineered graphics drivers that still have problems. I don't think anyone really needs to be scared of running closed graphics drivers.
- simgidacav 13y agoI'd prefer 3 hours using linux than 8 hours using windows.
- xiaomai 13y agoI hope we see a lot more of this soon. It's disappointing to see so many hackers using proprietary OSes/editors/etc. to build systems based on free software.
- Sven7 13y agovia Tim Wu's Master Switch - open vs closed = freedom vs convenience It's a trade-off. One is not better than the other.
- johntrollvolta 13y agoFreedom vs. convenience is a false dichotomy.
- nawitus 13y agoEh, that's a false trade-off. I'm more productive on a free OS, which I can customize to my needs (since I can choose a the best window manager for me from tens of good alternatives and so on).
- kybernetyk 13y agoI'd really love to switch to linux (tiling WMs rock). But I'm developing OS X desktop software ... so switching will probably stay a wish for the next few years :/
- 13y ago
- cathyjf 13y agoThe author mentions installing Ghostery, which appears to be nonfree.
- levosmetalo 13y agoIt is free, unless you have some politically overloaded definition of free.
- LeonidasXIV 13y agoI think the definition here was Free Software, which considering it doesn't seem to have a public repository with the source code, means that it is nonfree.
- Flimm 13y agoJust in case that's not clear, when people capitalise "Free Software", they're generally referring to the definition used by the Free Software Foundation.
- psycr 13y agoPlease don't be so simple minded. I mean that for your own sake. The English word 'free' has more than one common meaning.
- steveklabnik 13y agoNice catch! Straight-up error on my part.
- pjmlp 13y agoUnless there is a guarantee where the network traffic is going through, this is worthless even with encryption. Secret service agencies have the ability to pose as whatever they want, even using "legit" certificates.
- LeonidasXIV 13y ago> Secret service agencies have the ability to pose as whatever they want, even using "legit" certificates. That's why I greatly prefer the WoT model to the CA model and refuse to use S/MIME in favor of OpenPGP. That said, you could write down the checksums of the certificates you trust. Effectively you do trust checking by hand then.
- pjmlp 13y agoHow would you ever prevent whoever gets the information to pass it to secret services agency? That is why as European I find the whole PRISM discussion overblown as if people weren't aware secret service agencies have been doing this for years all over the world.
- LeonidasXIV 13y ago> How would you ever prevent whoever gets the information to pass it to secret services agency? I think it is about third parties. If I can't trust the person I am communicating to, why would I want to tell this person any secrets? > That is why as European I find the whole PRISM discussion overblown as if people weren't aware secret service agencies have been doing this for years all over the world. I agree completely.
- steveklabnik 13y agoI made this decision before the NSA stuff broke, it's just convenient timing. It also made many more people interested in what I was doing. I'm under no illusions that I have great privacy soley because I installed GNU/Linux.
- cantankerous 13y ago
- anon1385 13y agoI hope the author appreciates the irony of hosting this blog with svbtle…
- znowi 13y agoWhy? Is it an NSA cover? :)
- jalev 13y agoMore that it's a closed-source, invite-only blogging platform that had a somewhat mixed announcement[1] (partially due to the invite-only status) [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3742314 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3742314
- kybernetyk 13y agoOh, I always assumed it was a popular wordpress theme.
- statictype 13y agoI believe it's also a popular word press theme. Which also caused a fair amount of controversy for looking like its ripping off svbtle
- remi 13y agoYes, https://github.com/themeskult/wp-svbtle https://github.com/themeskult/wp-svbtle.
- giulivo 13y agoyes, not only that but I'm getting bored by people pretending they're doing anything good just because they've (finally) realized that using non-free software suffers from collaterals I'm bored by people pretending they've gone free just because they managed to replace OSX with some exotic gnu/linux distro (and with exotic I mean whatever which isn't mainstream) And I'm bored by people upvothing posts like this And I know someone will tell is me who is wrong (and boring) but listen, that is just your opinion, as this is mine. One thing isn't opinionable though, svbtle isn't free, so this post really isn't a good one, for me And if your story is about "how you reinstalled some random gnu/linux", well that is a 20 years old story; what is an hacker (news reader) interested in? the .Xmodmap settings? The fight for freedom today seems to me to have been moved for the great part somewhere else, on the webapps. How about we "return to freedom" by debating on how we get rid of all these non-free web applications?
- gits1225 13y agoI still have improvements to make, but what I have works well so far. Please let me know what you think, and suggest ways to make this setup even better. A crunchbanger for 2+ years, recent convert to elementary: http://elementaryos.org http://elementaryos.org , especially if you are looking for 'polish'. Do check it out once its out.
- girvo 13y agoWell, I <3 eOS, and I am developing for it, and chat to the devs on the daily (#elementary-dev on Freenode). Great guys, great OS. Thing is, it _does_ take away a lot of the "choice". It's very Mac influenced, and has a "convention over configuration" and "opinionated" view on how things should work. This is not a bad thing, if it fits you (like it does for me!). However, a lot of hackers on here won't be keen, considering their opinions on Unity anyway ;) Do give it a spin in a VM and see what you think, however! Personally, I have a Samsung Series-5 ultrabook 13", running Ubuntu 13.04 - it's brilliant. I've used Linux as my daily on my laptops since 2005 :)
- crocowhile 13y agoI have been using archlinux exclusively since 2006. I would be lost and furious without a central repository for all the updates, compiz goodies, and the free-of-malware/viruses peace of mind that only linux gives me. What is this "Chez" that OP is writing about?
- vysakh0 13y agoOP was talking about "Chef" a server configuration tool http://www.opscode.com/chef/ http://www.opscode.com/chef/
- steveklabnik 13y agoThanks for spotting the typo. I use and love Arch on my server, and was going to use it originally, but decided to give #! a go at the last minute.
- reledi 13y ago> One thing that I have yet to explore (but I’d like to) is to use a tool like Chef to set up my personal machine, so that I can periodically wipe everything and re-build from scratch. I'm in the same boat. Does anyone know a good tutorial to learn how to do this with Chef or Puppet? I don't have much of an interested in learning the tools, I just want to set it up and forget it (and occasionally update it). Do people make their Chef/Puppet configuration files public (e.g. on GitHub) just like they do with their dotfiles?
- phaer 13y agoNot chef or puppet, but Eivind Uggedal published the saltstack states for his personal archlinux machines: https://github.com/uggedal/states https://github.com/uggedal/states I plan to do the same for my debian setups, but i am not there yet.
- glogla 13y agoI'm not sure the X1 Carbon is such a great idea. I heard that Lenovo laptops are way cheaper in US than in Europe, but here, getting MBA instead would give you cheaper computer with better screen, and way better touchpad, while going for rMBP 13 would give you computer with better performance, more memory, way better screen and way better touchpad, while still being cheaper than the X1. Now more expensive than Apple product, while worse ... that requires actual effort! I'm planning to do just the same with Linux, though I'm waiting for Haswell Zenbook. EDIT: I hope I recall correctly on X1 having TN screen.
- steveklabnik 13y agoIt's quite possible waiting for Haswell would make sense, but when I need a computer, I just buy one; there's always something new coming around the corner. Others with different tolerances may choose differently.
- justincormack 13y agoIf you want to run Linux, Macbooks are not that great, as it takes ages to get support for each generation. You could buy a second hand or refurb one perhaps. I bought an old cheap discontinued model Lenovo (X201i) a few years back and put an SSD in. It could use more memory, although you tend to use VMs less on Linux than on OSX as you can run code natively. Should be good for a few more years.
- 6cxs2hd6 13y agoChromebook Pixel is actually a really nice laptop that "just works". Even the touch screen has driver support. You can chroot Ubuntu, or, wipe and go all-in. EDIT: Link to crouton: https://github.com/dnschneid/crouton https://github.com/dnschneid/crouton
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- D9u 13y agoI'm running FreeBSD on a 4 + year old netbook for close to a year now, and before that it was various unix-like OS choices, from Xubuntu, to Kuki, to Tiny Core, to Fedora, along with too many others to list as I sought an OS to suit my needs. I wiped WinXP (eXPloitable) off my hdd years ago, and haven't looked back ever since. My only caveat is Netflix, but this is easily fixed by booting into a persistent Debian USB flash drive installation and running compholio's netflix-desktop. As for those who complain about having to configure their unix-like systems, you can't really claim to be much of a "hacker" if configuring your own system is a task too onerous. After all, if a moron such as myself can do it, genius such as yours should have absolutely no problem using unix-like systems.
- bloodorange 13y agoAfter all, if a moron such as myself can do it, genius such as yours should have absolutely no problem using unix-like systems. Saying things like this hurts the quality of your post and may not be HN-worthy. The rest of your post was good enough to make your point. (edit: formatting)
- geekymartian 13y agoComing from OSX, how do you handle the cmd + * to ctrl + * switch? After years of cmd key combinations I always find hard to switch to ctrl key combinations. The app switching with alt instead of cmd kills me too.
- steveklabnik 13y agoI've used OS X since it was called 'System 6,' and used GNU/Linux on and off for years, so it's generally just a few days of 'dammit.... Dammit. Dammit.' and then I'm fine.
- tammer 13y agoRemapping is very easy. Many resources recommend the xmodmap command, but I've had much more success on recent distros by setting xkbmap options in the Xorg config. A big list of possible rules are located at /usr/share/X11/xkb/rules/base.lst Changing alt+tab to ctrl+tab is easy with most window managers. (I find the alt/command physical key much more ergonomic than the physical control key.)
- tripzilch 13y agoYou tough it out like a grown adult hacker, and don't whine about it during the 2-3 days it might give you trouble (cursing is fine, and in fact encouraged).
- bugsbunny4341 13y agoI primarily use gnu/linux and I'm planning to upgrade my laptop. Any recommendation? rMBP, Zenbook, Carbon X1...? Long battery life and performance are the primary criteria.
- bdimcheff 13y agoI have a lenovo x230 that works great for me... It's not as high-res as an X1, but it is super easy to swap in 16G of ram and an SSD. I think the X1's ram is soldered. I also have an extra battery that snaps onto the bottom which will give me ~10-12hrs of total battery life when I'm going about my usual business.
- steveklabnik 13y agoIf battery is your primary concern you should hold out for Haswell.
- acc00 13y agoI have ASUS UX31A (Core i5 version). Pretty happy with it. Get 6-7 hours with WiFi on.
- mark_l_watson 13y agoFor me, it is a matter of moving in the right direction. I can't run on all free software. For example, I had to dig my old Windows laptop out of my junk closet today to do a homework assignment (without warning, the last assignment for the Cousera Data Science class requires Windows :-( ) Also, I prefer Android (not free software, but at least more open) but the are a few apps on my iPad I really like so I am not giving away my iPad anytime soon.
- mwcampbell 13y agoFor the assignment that required Windows, did you try using WINE? If so, how did that work out? Just curious.
- mark_l_watson 13y agoI installed the app on Windows, but it was a real nuisance. I was annoyed :-(
- billsix 13y ago>Also, I prefer Android (not free software, but at least more open Not free software? http://www.cyanogenmod.org http://www.cyanogenmod.org
- mark_l_watson 13y agoThanks for that link. My Samsung Galaxy S III was not on the list - cool that a lot of phones are already supported. Even better would be able to buy a Google Nexus phone out of the box, that was all free.
- archivator 13y agoI'm surprised no one has mentioned that using software full disk encryption on an SSD is a really bad idea. It increases wear dramatically, completely invalidates TRIM and works against the controller every step of the way. LVM has an option that supposedly passes TRIM through but in my case I'm pretty sure it didn't do anything.
- gasull 13y agoCan you explain more about this? Even if my disk wore off faster, I'd still use full-disk encryption. What if laptop is lost or stolen with financial info in it?
- pyre 13y agoAlso, I would want to know the difference between Full Disk Encryption of file/folder-based encryption like ecryptfs in the wear and tear on SSDs.
- archivator 13y agoRight. The thing is, when you wear out an SSD, you get these enormous (multiple seconds) pauses that, if you're doing anything I/O bound slow you down to a crawl. Even opening a heavy web page can trigger them. Buy a fast HDD if you want consistent long term behaviour with FDE. The reason FDE breaks SSDs is that the implementation in LVM works at the block level. To send TRIM, the filesystem says "this block is empty, tell the controller" but depending on a thousand things, among which are cipher mode, cipher block size and other minutiae, LVM will invalidate the TRIM command. Without TRIM, SSDs deteriorate rather quickly. Personally, I understand why FDE is needed but I'm of the opinion that selective encryption (with possible plausible deniability measures) is a much neater, if more difficult, approach.
- Spittie 13y agoYou should enable encryption at the controller level, many modern SSD support it and it shouldn't influence the performance.
- eksith 13y agoLot of comments on what exactly constitutes free software (and the snarky insinuation that somehow only the FSF can determine what exactly that means). Let's let Richard explain it : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPPikY3uLIQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPPikY3uLIQ
- mwcampbell 13y agoI wonder if we can get that video in a format that doesn't require Flash Player.
- eksith 13y ago1) In Firefox get the "DownloadHelper" helper plugin. 2) Visit the page (hopefully you still don't have Flash plugin in the first place or have completely extricated it from your system) 3) DownloadHelper icon will start animating. From the dropdown select your resolution and download. 4) The video format you have downloaded is patented and must be erased quickly. Therefore, download Handbrake ( http://handbrake.fr http://handbrake.fr ) which is open source and convert it to a free format. 5) Run a disk eraser program to ensure that the deleted offending technologies are in fact deleted off your hard drive.
- catmanjan 13y agoI think Richard refuses to do interviews unless there is an .OGG formatted copy available, if there was one it would be at RMS.org
- catmanjan 13y agoLook software either is or isn't free. The four laws were created by Richard himself for the FSF! What this blog talks about isn't free software. It is open source software. It's like saying that you're a vegetarian but you eat meat every third meal. You're just not a vegetarian. For the record I don't even like free software but I find people who use it is a buzz word as annoying as kids who claim to 420 blaze everyday.
- eksith 13y ago
- lettergram 13y agoNo matter how much "free" software you will still be tracked. The government has access to all the data you use on their internet via service providers as well as the internet hubs. Besides the government the data that the companies collect is used to improve their software, so is that really bad? I agree I do not like being snooped on, but the government is the only body I really have any interest in because it is in the constitution not to snoop on me without cause, the company (usually) doesn't provide such assurances/promises.
- millerm 13y agoWhat does the NSA/privacy issue have to do with your switch? I'm curious to know how using free software could possibly protect you from the current NSA issues that have been brought to light. You are still using the public Internet (services such as email, web/http etcetera), which has nothing to do with free software. You are using telephony (well, perhaps you don't have a phone) systems provided by private companies which provide the info to the NSA. Security is still a two way street in every case. Sure, everything I use might be 'secure' but how do you know that every one you collaborate with is just as 'secure' as you? Once you send data to anyone, it's out of your hands. I'm just asking questions. I respect the switch. I've tried several times, but I still like OS X too much to dump it. I know freedom can come at a price, such as having a lessened user experience (in some cases). I really don't feel, and have not been shown, that Apple has been reading all my data and sending it to third parties. So, on the security aspect, I've no reason to get rid of the OS that I work on and that contributes heavily to my income. Now, I use an awful lot of free software but I just can't give up OS X at this time.
- greyman 13y agoI see it the same way. It's completely irrelevant that you don't have a NSA-backdoors, when you are "cached" (see in wikipedia: Room 641A), i.e. all Internet traffic (at least in the U.S.) and all phone calls are collected. We even don't know if they can't crack PGP...do we?
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- steveklabnik 13y agoAs I said in the post, I made the decision to switch beforehand. One of the issues that made me finally do it was mysterious load spikes that would happen on my machine, and I couldn't figure out what was up. Like, "Why are my fans running? Top says my load is at 2, but no process is using more than 2% CPU." With software that is Free, I can be pretty damn sure that there isn't something that's sending something somewhere behind my back. That said, it would not help _directly_ with the NSA situation. They're related because everyone was asking me to write this post up, because they care a lot more about privacy and information freedom in light of recent events. Taking control of my own computer is just one step, it's not 'foolproof' or 'secure' by any means. If anything, the NSA situation just confirmed what I already knew: the executive branch doesn't give a care in the world as to the intent of the law, only the letter. As someone who has... generally unacceptable political views, and expresses them in front of a reasonably large audience on a regular basis, I constantly wonder about things like some of the other stories on the front page.
- tammer 13y agoMy current stance is that I'm fine with using any device not internally linked to an online identity. I.e., not associating my user account with an apple ID. I still think of OS X as an open platform since I can use entirely free software alongside Apple's amazing apps. I also still trust that the Mac's limited market share makes known backdoors less valuable to the powers that be, and more dangerous to Apple's reputation if discovered by anyone else. Using iOS, on the other hand, necessarily waives the right to privately install software. That's one I won't give up.
- catmanjan 13y agoCan you please list the free software you use on OS X?
- tammer 13y agovim, tmux, zsh, mutt (ppl & ldap for addressing), vimperator, qemu, pass, homebrew, seahorse, general programming languages, general unix utils, pandoc (& LaTeX), ffmpeg, kdenlive, lots of associated plugins and helper scripts, keyremap4macbook, tarsnap, rtorrent, nginx, plex. Probably much more in the future (homebrew's repo is huge); I'm just recently making the switch from Arch. I'll need a better free & open cloud sync solution, but I was using Dropbox on Linux anyway.