Well I don't know how MNT will configure the Reform. I presume they'll load the OS entirely in the eMMC flash. So my plan is to dual boot it - either the default OS in eMMC or Ubuntu in the NVMe SSD. That way I can go back and forth and see what works best. Once my mind is made up, if I decide to install Ubuntu in eMMC, I'll back it it, blow it, transfer Ubuntu onto it and mount the NVMe SSD as /home. If I decide Ubuntu sucks, I'll just wipe the SSD and use it as /home immediately.
Well I'll see how it goes. It can't be anymore frustrating than my stupid HP laptop. Worst case, it is so unusable that I have to revert to the HP laptop. But I doubt it.
Re OS, I'm not installing Gentoo. This is 2024 and I value my time 🙂 As for Debian, I kind of intend to blow the partition and install Ubuntu 24.04 since I opted for the RK3588 module.
I expect stuff won't work. That's okay: it comes with the territory with a machine such as this one. If I just wanted something speedy that works reliably with Linux and satisfies my repairability requirements, I'd have picked a Framework laptop.
In fact I hesitated for quite some time, but in the end, I think the Reform will provide a lot more fun for a lot longer than a boring-ass it-just-works laptop. And the 18650 cells are a huge plus too: good luck finding another laptop with 18650s 🙂
I tried it. It's unstable either way. Not to mention, I can't really do Wayland because I have software I use all the time that rely on X.
The problem is the driver with the AMD Radeon Vega 6 chipset: it's an older chipset and it's not well supported by either the amdgpu or amdgpu pro drivers. I mean it works well enough most of the time, but every once in a while, it starts corrupting the display so bad I have to reboot. It usually happens when waking up from sleep or - strangly - when taking a screenshot with Flameshot (really weird that one).
I am reliably told that newer AMD stuff is better supported. That's great. But AMD obviously doesn't care about supporting the older Vega 6 chipset anymore, and I'm not exactly keen on debugging the open-source amdgpu driver to get better performances on a laptop that has other issues and that I can't stand anyway.
In fairness, anybody who dual-boots invites Microsoft to apply their legendary incompetence to their entire system. And so while I understand that dual-booting is (still, sadly) a totally valid need, people who set up their system for dual-boot kind of make life more difficult for themselves. Microsoft is just being Microsoft here.
So you really trust Google to release code that doesn't do something it shouldn't behind your back do you? How cute...
I am an embedded developer so please don't patronize me. And I know enough about security to know that Google's security model on the Pixel phones is the best yet. That's not the issue. The issues are:
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Google's code is untrustworthy unless reviewed, and proprietary binary blobs can't be reviewed. If Google codes anything, they have an ulterior motive and it's rarely in your best interest. If that's not a security shortcoming, I don't know what is. Or said another way, there's something deeply ironic in claiming to have the most secured deGoogled OS and the lynchpin of that security is Google itself.
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Yes, using a phone other than a Pixel phone with a deGoogled OS other than GrapheneOS as I do (I use a FP4 with CalyxOS) is less secure than GrapheneOS on a Pixel phone - assuming you trust Google's drivers aren't doing other things unrelated to their driver function.
But as I said, my most important goal in anything technical I use is to not use Google. That's my ideal. Some people have ideals and aren't willing to compromise.
With that in mind, and considering that I'm a low-value target, I deem the security provided by CalyxOS on my FP4 more than adequate for my use case. Or said another way, GrapheneOS' - short-sighted, in my opinion - obsession with security gets in the way of my main goal, which is to avoid Google.
Windows is best run in a VM in Linux. Who knows what the hell it does when it's running on bare metal. Do you trust Microsoft not to poke around in your Linux disks when you boot into Windows? I don't.
Graphene is against GNU ideals getting in the way of security,
Funny, Graphene's obsession with security is getting in the way of my ideals.
Fuck Google and their proprietary security updates. I want no Google in my life and if that means a bit less security, I'm okay with that. In fact, I'd argue that running Google code that does who-knows-what for your security is itself not a very safe thing to do.
I don't know if it has any legal value, but here's what I've been doing with online services that really matter (not Reddit, I don't give a shit about Reddit, but things like my bank):
I read the TOS - which, in the case of actual serious online services, tends to be shorter - and I make a note of anything I don't like in it. Then I click agree, then I send an email to info@, support@, legal@, webmaster@ and whatever other vaguely relevant email I can find in the TOS' issuer's domain telling them this:
"I clicked okay because I needed to do XYZ and there was no button to discuss your terms or disagree. But I disagree with the following points. Here are my counter-conditions:
[...]
If you disagree with my conditions, please send me or my lawyer - who is copied on this email - your counter-proposal within 1 (one) week. If you do not sent me or my lawyer an email within 1 (one) week, I shall consider my conditions accepted, legally binding and superseding the relevant sections of your original TOS."
And I copy my lawyer.
I've never gotten any reply, because no actual human reads those email addresses. If anything comes up, I'll pull the counter-email I sent them with my conditions, which they agreed to by not answering. I've never had to use them, but I really wish I'll get the opportunity to test them in court some day, just for shits and giggles.
And yes, I have enough disposable to pay a lawyer to do this kind of shit. I'm a spiteful man when it comes to tech companies, and I'm quite ready to bankrupt myself to fuck them in the ass.
When I was a CS student in the early-mid 90s, my college had Unix only and we had to fight to get a free terminal to complete our assignments.I had a good 486DX with Windows 3.11 and I had heard of Minix, so I could do my assignments in the comfort (?) of my dorm room.
I went to my local technical library to see if they had a box (that sort of places used to carry boxed OSes and specialized software back then). They didn't, but they had this CD with Slackware written on it and the store owner said it was better. So I bought it on a whim.
After many hours and a lot of recompiling the kernel and libraries right and left, the thing finally booted and ran surprisingly stable. My roommate saw it and immediately installed it on his machine. The next days we went buy a couple of 10base2 NICs, some coax and a pair of terminator, and before you know it, we had NFS going.
It was our own Unix network and it was way better than college's :) I never looked back.
I did work with DRDOS as a kernel dev a few years later, which involved reverse-engineering bits of MSDOS 7 (yes, that's the version of MSDOS Windows 95 ran on top of). That's as close to working professionally with MS stuff as I ever got. Other than than, I'm a pure product of the Linux generation baby!
the only unrealistic part is the implied community cohesion
Those who are old enough and grew up in small town America remember the sense of community. If you've never experienced it, I feel sorry for you, whether it's because you grew up in a big city or because it disappeared for your generation.
But I will say this - echoing what Bamfic said: yeah, you kind of needed to be white. I was and so was the store owner and the dude who was doing the fake holdups. So I'm not deluding myself: I know the sense of community didn't include everybody necessarily. But it was a thing for sure.
I used to like cocaine, but I hated the addiction and I hated what it did to my nose.
But here's the thing: you can't have cocaine without the side effects. So I chose to stop cocaine. It's less fun in the short term, but getting your life back together and enjoying the simple pleasures in life more than make up for it in the long run.
You need to choose Reddit with the side effects, or no Reddit and work on making Lemmy fun. You can't have the Reddit hit without the side effects.
But if you put in the effort of trying to make Lemmy fun, it'll be more rewarding, and it will help rebuild worthwhile communities away from Reddit for the benefit of everybody.
Up to you.
Oh right okay. Yeah now that you mention it. I do seem to recall watching somebody's video booting the reform from the SD card. Well then, that's even better: I can just backup the SD card and reinstall over anything I'm not happy with.
I'm totally unfamiliar with how these things boot. I'm not even sure it's more or less standardized between various SoMs. But I suppose it's possible to select which device to boot from at some point or other after power-up. So maybe what I'll do is follow the manual just to familiarize myself with the machine as MNT Research intended, then install Ubuntu on a SD card and boot off of that, until I'm happy enough with it and replace the default stuff on the eMMC with it.
I'm curious: why do you need an I/O board with the Banana Pi CM4? Do you need a JTAG or SWD port that the add-on board provides to program the flash if the updater gets hosed or something like that?