Because Shiny Things Are Fun - The New New Windows v Linux Thread
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Although, they seem to indicate that they provide some products for Android, iOS, etc. Since they have something for Android, I wouldn't have thought that Linux, in a generic sense, apart from Android, should be totally beyond their reach.
Android is a huge market for the "virus industry" just like Windows, where desktop Linux hobbyists are not. While the kernel is the same, that's where much of the similarity ends. Libc, userland, abi, api, have little in common. Google see Linux as a mere stepping stone and are developing their own OS.ď
Android is a huge market for the "virus industry" just like Windows, where desktop Linux hobbyists are not. While the kernel is the same, that's where much of the similarity ends. Libc, userland, abi, api, have little in common. Google see Linux as a mere stepping stone and are developing their own OS.ď
I feel that with a desktop computer running a Linux distro., there's the Linux kernel that carries out the tasks, but there's another "layer" on top of that which interacts with the User. I would think of that mostly as the so called Desktop Environment, such as KDE, Gnome, etc. I've been involved in developing apps. for Android, and for the most part I would think of Android itself as more or less the equivalent of the Desktop Environment, built on top of the Linux kernel. In that sense, when you say that Google is developing it's OS, do you actually mean that they wish to replace the kernel? Or are you just using "OS" the way some people do when they talk about a "Desktop OS", in which they include the kernel and the Desktop Environment which interacts with the User?
Amazing how booting x86 now involves a horrible tangled convoluted mess called UEFI and that in order to boot a Linux kernel on x86 some resort to the bloated monstrosity that is grub2... plus workarounds such as disabling "secure boot" or using the Microsoft signing key...
And 25 or so years ago some would say that the "legacy" BIOS had "redundant code", that was not being used by modern "plug and play" OS...
Amazing how booting x86 now involves a horrible tangled convoluted mess called UEFI and that in order to boot a Linux kernel on x86 you need the bloated monstrosity that is grub2... plus workarounds such as disabling "secure boot" or using the Microsoft signing key...
And 25 or so years ago some would say that the "legacy" BIOS had "redundant code", that was not being used by modern "plug and play" OS...
You don't need GRUB. elilo works just as well. And disabling secure boot isn't a complication, it's the avoidance of one.
It is however an abandoned project, which has seen no development for about 5 years.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hazel
And disabling secure boot isn't a complication, it's the avoidance of one.
I never said it was. I used the term "workaround". i.e. a user who wants to install a Linux distribution either has to disable it or install a distribution which takes care of all that and uses the MS signing key.
UEFI and it's secureboot payload, was a move by MS and it's OEM partners to make installing alternative OS on those platforms cumbersome - with the eventual goal of locking them out altogether.
Just as MS did not openly advertise that you can still upgrade from Windows 7/8/8.1 to Windows 10 for free to protect it's OEM partners' profits, UEFI + secureboot is also aimed at protecting sales of new units and preventing the user replacing an MS OS with something else. It's business.
At this present moment in time, the only accessible and "automagic" solution to installing a Linux distribution on a UEFI, is grub2.
UEFI and it's secureboot payload, was a move by MS and it's OEM partners to make installing alternative OS on those platforms cumbersome - with the eventual goal of locking them out altogether.
Just as MS did not openly advertise that you can still upgrade from Windows 7/8/8.1 to Windows 10 for free to protect it's OEM partners' profits, UEFI + secureboot is also aimed at protecting sales of new units and preventing the user replacing an MS OS with something else. It's business.
At this present moment in time, the only accessible and "automagic" solution to installing a Linux distribution on a UEFI, is grub2.
There have been complaints suggesting that UEFI violates things such as anti-monoply, anti-trust laws. But I believe the idea is, as long as it's possible to get around the UEFI to install another OS, it doesn't violate the laws.
I have Windows around both to help people who insist on using Windows, and because there seems to be slightly different pagination of documents, produced by different "Office Suites". If someone insists on getting a document in "Word" format, I'll double check the pagination of it on Word under Windows. Especially because I prefer not to use Windows, the Windows I have is usually multiple versions behind the current version. I'll wait until places will sell an old version at a big discount, and then get the cheaper "Upgrade" version.
So I'm aware of discounted "Upgrade" versions of Windows, but upgrading free? Please give the details.
What about the BIOS, you can pull the chip out and flash it.
...
In general principle, that sounds nice. In practice though, how can someone assure that they can get the BIOS code in a form from which they can easily yank out the UEFI, then create an image of the modified BIOS code, so they can flash it?
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