LoL. I didn’t even watch it, but it sounds like propaganda to me. When I used to sell things I would talk about not my products in the same light.
Queue up the clown faces.
In short, this guy is against Secure Boot but explains that secure boot and uefi can be used for the user’s security. But that they can be used against the user as well if they are abused by large corporations to lock you out of your own hardware and turn your pc into an over glorified Iphone.
Isn’t that (“it can be used for evil”) a bit of a straw man argument though? It is not being used in that way, and there’s no reason (tinfoil aside) to believe it will be. A C++ program can be used to write a virus. Does that mean we should boycott all C++ programs? (rhetoric question, no need to reply)
Regardless - philosophical discussions aside, there’s simply the reality on the ground, which is that Secure Boot is here to stay and no amount of raging will change that. So the decision for Arch developers is whether they want users who won’t turn it off, or not. Unfortunately we do not get to decide whether Secure Boot will be a thing in general.
Take a look at the Iphone, that thing is locked down so that you can’t sideload anything on it. With secure boot enabled by default and a few adjustment to Windows Microsoft will be able to control what you are allowed to install on your computer and what you aren’t allowed to install. At least that’s how things are looking like the direction things are going currently. I agree it is here to stay but will still have to see how far these corporations are going to take it, it’s naive thinking if you think corporations won’t abuse something just so they can squeeze a bit more money out of everyone.
1 Like
But isn’t it better to support it now (to get more users) knowing you can always drop it later IF it’s abused, as opposed to not supporting it and losing potential users because of a future event that may or may not happen?
You mean how you are locked out of your iphone or android phone now? You might have spent money on it, but you no way control what goes on inside it. Vendor/Google/Apple/Telco/ChipMaker all control parts of it that you can’t get at and can often snoop/modify anything on the phone. That is also one of the things wrong with “secure” boot, microsoft controls it, not you, and they can do what they want.
3 Likes
Profit motives with corporations are always contradictory to what the ‘people’ want. Money is the most corrupting factor in every decision made by corporations. People be damned. Money is everything. In the end the consumer is barraged with a lot of crap, advertisements, registration frees, licensing fees, EULA’s and all that BS. Software versions with endless upgrade costs become the new norm. This is why Windows is garbage IMHO. They control you and your computer.
Rich:)
2 Likes
You seem to have overlooked the arch philosophy behind the distro. If you are a newbie then arch is not aimed at you. Arch is aimed at users who are not afraid of using the terminal or entering the UEFI/BIOS settings and who have experience with linux - so why would arch suddenly change it’s philosophy just to attract newbies?
Arch is aimed at people who know that the word “secure” when dealing with IT does not exist. You can make things more secure, never secure. the name “secure boot” is just marketing.
In other words Arch is aimed at users who have no problem entering BIOS/UEFI and turning “secure boot” off.
3 Likes
That’s the point I was trying to make about secureboot to @ahershko.
Yeah sure, that might work now but who knows what will happen with secureboot and PC’s. Maybe there will come a time where you aren’t even able to install a custom os on your device anymore.
This will likely happen with or without Secure Boot.
1 Like
That will be a sad day to be alive, I hope I won’t be around for that day.
It is anything but secure, “secure boot” specifically introduced itself MUCH more security vulnerabilities than it ever claimed (not actually in real world) to solve, while also trying to trample on your freedom making life harder for everyone.
P.S. Damn, my bad i’ve read it as “it IS” really secure…need more coffee urgently 
1 Like
Absolutely not, because:
-
It’s proprietary, so you don’t know what it actually does.
-
It’s already well known how “secure” it is, there are a lot of known vulnerabilities.
1 Like
Adding distro support for secure boot wouldn’t actually create a situation where things were locked down to the point they couldn’t be changed.
If things get locked down to that point, secure boot would become required and you would be unable to boot without it.
There is very little downside to the end-user to adding support for secure boot in a Linux distro. The user can still choose to disable secure boot if that is their preference. Support in this case means it works if you choose to use it.
However, there is an investment in time and ongoing maintenance to support SB that the distro maintainers need to provide.
2 Likes
Good, I say! The users who can’t be bothered to switch off secure boot in the UEFI setup are better off using 'Buntu. And the rest of us here are better off with them not being around, using 'Buntu. Win - win!
3 Likes
At the rate we as humans are giving up our freedoms, I won’t be surprised either. It’s part of why my firearms are clean and I have no offspring.
I’ll keep my Thinkpad until forever and build custom PCs until you can’t buy them anymore. And hopefully by then I’ll be old enough to take my life savings to Vegas and go out with enough cocaine and hookers to make even Chris Farley envious.
I hope I am not alive when that day comes because I refuse to be running Windows on a device that I paid for. Or maybe new hardware vendors will arise when there is enough demand like System76 hardware or Tux Computers hardware where you than can install whatever you want on it.
1 Like
Yup. There’s clearly a demand. System 76 is very busy now. I hope to see that trend continue.
1 Like
RISC-V so far is only freedom oriented development potential, because it’s the only CPU that has none of the Micro$oft Pluton chip-to-cloud “security” and board has no Intel ME or AMD PSP backdoors…All because it’s open-source hardware, anyone can produce and test it theoretically.
So i’m looking forward to that!
Some people even played Crysis on it already 
5 Likes
3 Likes