all have failed
Here I sit, an eternal failure.
- posted from my Oneplus 6T on PostmarketOS
ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 2 days ago
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.
Vanilla_PuddinFudge@infosec.pub 2 days ago
MinFapper@startrek.website 2 days ago
$1M carries the weight of about 1M signatures, which is to say… not much.
SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org 1 day ago
Fairphone devs contribute drives to linux. Their phones are among the best supported devices for postmarketos and ubuntu touch and so on.
Tywele@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
What makes mobile hardware more complicated than desktop hardware?
dustyData@lemmy.world 2 days ago
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.
frank_exchange_of_views@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
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.
ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 2 days ago
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 leave 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.
Tuuktuuk@sopuli.xyz 2 days ago
Has Fairphone failed in this regard, in your opinion?
InFerNo@lemmy.ml 2 days ago
What are these Linux laptop providers going to sell if they can’t order anything from the factory that lets them change the software because reasons
ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 2 days ago
I’m saying that there’s enough laptop providers and enough different factories to maintain supply of unlocked hardware. You don’t have to worry about locked CPU/GPUs, only about locked bootloaders which have a lot of different providers. With mobiles it’s easier to lock because it’s all packed into SOCs and you don’t have as much choice for latest hardware.
GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 2 days ago
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.
StupidBrotherInLaw@lemmy.world 2 days ago
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?
Tuuktuuk@sopuli.xyz 2 days ago
Moat of servers run Linux, and servers are just computers.
monogram@feddit.nl 2 days ago
www.supermicro.com/en/products/…/sys-611c-tn4r is not running anticheat required software, bank webapps and windows store could start requiring: insider-gaming.com/battlefield-6-secureboot-not-e…
vane@lemmy.world 2 days ago
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.
ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 2 days ago
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.