Hacker News Reader

Comment by madez | Hacker News Reader

> And yet we really don’t seem to care much.

I do care, a lot. I have decided to avoid Intel (and AMD) hardware like the pest. I will not buy any Core iSpyOnYou or AMD equivalent anymore. I'm an advocate of economic and judicial sanctions from the political level against Intel (and AMD). I tell people around me about the problems and explain how it is an issue of privacy, security, national sovereignty, and market power abuse.

I'm looking for a desktop computer for my day to day use that comes without compromised hardware. The Raspberry Pi 3 works quite well, but doesnt work without non-free software. I successfully installed Debian onto my A20-OLinuXino-MICRO, but the GUI doesn't start. I'm looking for Hardware without Intel Hardware, without non-free software, mainline Linux support and preferable Debian compatible. The OpenPower system by raptor engineering is simply too expensive. I cannot afford it. Any ideas?

View on HN

Librem laptop is reasonable powerful, and they have effectively neutered the ME.

Libreboot replaces firmware for some decade-old server machines lacking a ME (although noisy, they work quite well as a desktop).

The Librem laptop are not an option because they use Intel chips. Buying Intel products supports and finances their current way. They did not even address the grave accusations. There is no way I can give them money.

When Librem was first announced, I had grave concerns too, and I stuck with my Libreboot computers. However, it was just this past month when they showed proof of concept for their Purism phone running KDE plasma on an ARM board without any firmware/driver blob concerns and also showed how they isolated and disabled the Intel ME that I took them seriously, at which point I ordered a labtop and have been very happy.

The amount of money that Intel gets off these chips can't be significant because they are currently over two years old anyways (Q3'15).

I don't get how their work on the Purism phone makes their laptop any better. Care to explain the relation?

That one can maybe fix a hardware backdoor in Intel chips does not make buying them any better. Intel does not get my money but should instead get clear-worded, sanctioned letter from the authorities. I think they should be banned from trading and selling their backdoored stuff. I will not buy even old products of them. They messed up big time and don't even explain themselves.

"how their work on the Purism phone makes their laptop any better"

So you are obviously right that proof of concept of fully FLOSS ARM phone doesn't directly translate to x86.

But it does show that they know how and want to build fully FLOSS systems. Whether they don't quite succeed 100% with the x86 system (as the management engine is still in my computer, albeit isolated and disabled), they have been making great strides in getting close to %100 and I am willing to reward them for that.

Regarding the morality of buying Intel chips, I do share the reluctance to support Intel. I hadn't bought a new Intel computer or CPU since 2007 with Core2Duo for that reason. But sometimes morality decision can't be made in a binary all or nothing manner. In this case I am aware of the damage done by purchasing an x86 system, but it makes up for in being able to have a productive labtop which I can more effectively work to make FLOSS applications with.

For more details on this, see https://puri.sm/posts/purism-librem-laptops-completely-disab...

Your best bet will be with NXP then. They still haven't released the i.MX8 cpus, but i.MX7 boards are available (up to dual core 1.2GHz), and, as far as I know, they are the only (decent, omap3 & 4 don't have enough power these days) with full opensource support for the entire SoC, even the GPU

Thank you for pointing these out. The i.MX7 and i.MX8 SoCs seem very interesting, but I have a hard time finding information about available SBCs, mainline Linux and official Debian support. The only SBC I found is the Nitrogen7[0] and it doesn't seem to geared towards desktop use as there is no DP nor HDMI nor VGA, though the PCIe expansions is gold. I wonder why other SBC don't offer PCIe. They might not have the highest performance, but I don't need that.

[0] https://boundarydevices.com/product/nitrogen7/

Could you not just buy a Macintosh? Macs lack the AMT chip so the ME in the CPU can't do anything.

It's still Intel hardware. But besides that, does the Macintosh work without blobs and mainline Linux? Can I install Debian on it and have stuff working? I'm just tired of uncooperative manufactures.

> Can I install Debian on it and have stuff working?

Depends on the kind of Mac you buy. I can only comment on their mobile offerings:

- Best supported are the current MacBook Airs. Everything except the Webcam should work out-of-the-box. The webcam needs the out-of-tree bcwc_pcie driver (https://github.com/patjak/bcwc_pcie)).

- The Retina MacBooks need some manual work before being usable (e.g. need to compile out-of-tree keyboard & touchpad driver (https://github.com/cb22/macbook12-spi-driver)), but should work fine as well.

- The MacBook Pros before October 2016 are also quite good supported, the support for newer ones is still quite incomplete (check out https://github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux for details), although it's possible to use them as daily driver if you're aware of the limitations.

I've never tried but Debian has a lengthy (if out of date?) wiki page about running it on Macbooks:

https://wiki.debian.org/MacBook

https://wiki.debian.org/MacBookPro

The latest macbook pros essentially don't work well with linux. I think wifi isn't a solved issue still, for example.

None of them work well with Linux, despite the Linux folks sometimes bending over backwards to make it work. https://lwn.net/Articles/707616/

All of the Macs I have require binary firmware blobs for WiFi, for the open source driver to work. And even in that case none of them can do even 802.11n. I have to use the proprietary WiFi driver to get 802.11n or 802.11ac. And yes each model varies in this regard, which makes it something of a Choose Your Own Adventure book.

Depends on the model. On the non-TouchBar models WiFi works fine, on the TouchBar models it doesn't. For more details check: https://github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux

What’s AMT? Is ME on Macs innocuous?

Active Management Technology is the backdoor that's sold as a feature.

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Active_Management_Techno...

Not innocuous, but probably less dangerous.

I heard https://beagleboard.org/black can boot and run Linux w/o any blobs either in bootloader or kernel (provided you're OK with a sub-par screen resolution and not using the onboard GPU)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12584880 and others might have details on WiFi and such

The BeagleBoard X15 seems very interesting. The onboard GPU is definitely a problem though. Why didn't they go for a useable GPU? And no, if it does not have open Mesa drivers, it is not usable.

I really wonder why the GPU situation is such a huge mess. Very few are supported by free drivers and the closed drivers are, besides being closed, often of very low quality. Is patent law holding this situation stable? Isn't patent law there to promote advance? I feel it isn't working.

Your best bet is probably a tablet or smartphone with a fast ARM processor. Those don't have the management engine and can run surprisingly fast.

While it's true that they don't have MEs, the basebands in smartphones almost always have direct memory access, and their own proprietary firmware, so the same problems apply :-(

As a desktop computer for day to day use? Can I run it without non-free software? Can I natively install Debian with mainline Linux to actually get work done? Can I connect a monitor and other accessory?

Should not trust a phone or tablet. Are the radios off? Are you sure?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com