On Tue, Mar 21, 2023 at 11:17:50AM +0800, Paul Wise wrote:
On Tue, 2023-03-21 at 00:34 +0100, Lionel Élie Mamane wrote:
Would an ARM-based machine be a good freedom-respecting computer to
run Debian on? I read the Raptor/Power guys saying modern ARM has
freedom problems in a, but I haven't seen them go into specifics.
It depends on what you mean by freedom-respecting.
Mostly, I wanted to understand the main alternatives and their level
of freedom. In an ideal world, I'd like every bit of software,
drivers, firmware, etc to be FLOSS. Pragmatically, I won't reject a
platform that is "less bad" than the amd64 I'd get from the store.
Thank you for the good overview!
For example, the RPi devices start the VideoCore GPU first,
proprietary firmware then starts the ARM cores, then starts the ARM
boot process.
Oh. So less good than I expected.
On mobile devices, look at PinePhone, Librem 5 or MNT Pocket Reform,
other devices have less mainline Linux support or worse freedom
issues.
Mobile... let's say I consider this a different subject, sadly. we've
been having different projects for a long time (I remember OpenMoko /
GTA0x, also some early Compaq PDAs??) but IMO nothing I can use in
daily life. I have a Librem 5, I ordered it... I think in 2017. I
don't consider it usable for daily life, at least "out of the box +
install available OS upgrades".
On laptops, probably the Apple ARM devices are the fastest, but
mainline Linux isn't yet suitable but is gaining ground quickly. I
think there might be some blobs during the boot or something and the
different page size for Apple ARM devices might be a challenge.
Yes, I've been excited about it since they started; recently I took a
look at
https://github.com/AsahiLinux/docs/wiki/Introduction-to-Apple-Silicon
they say "somewhere between x86 PCs and a libre-first system like the
Talos II in terms of freedom to replace firmware and boot components;
while a number of blobs are required in order to boot the system, none
of those have the ability to take over the OS or compromise it
post-boot", but also:
* Brick recovery / total system flash (DFU) requires phoning home
Which I understand an Apple account, tying the hardware to the Apple
account, and Apple's permission to do a "total system flash". Err...
feels like jumping out of the frying pan into the fire?
Otherwise Lenovo and other vendors have some ARM laptops.
Oh, I'll try to find them.
Or there is the PineBook or MNT Reform for more esoteric devices.
The PineBook shop page explicitly says "don't order if you are looking
for a substitute for your x86 laptop" :-|
I don't particularly want to get deep into being a porter
Personally I think users of every non-amd64 port should consider
doing porting work to keep their ports viable, since your personal
package set might not be on the radar of vendors like ARM or other
users.
"Some work", like submitting patches to fix that-or-that package for
the architecture, yes, that's part of FLOSS developer / enthusiast
life, and I'd probably enjoy the work. Even running a buildd, if
that's what lacking. But I don't want it to be the majority of my
"free software time" either. And I need a machine that works to do the
work, obviously.
.