Mmmm, Linux
Now? Doesn’t M$ still release the “S” mode version of Windows that only allow downloads via their “official App Store”?
My girlfriends laptop came with S mode and holy shit, I just about threw it out the window. I knew Windows 11 would be dogshit but when I couldn’t run firefoxinstaller.exe I got so annoyed. I then spent ~30 minutes troubleshooting how to allow running fucking exes as the guides were all out of date, including the one that were a month old.
I’ve been using Linux and XP for a few years now and god damn does it feel gross to use Win11. Not having control over your own PC is disgusting.
Windows machines make great Linux devices. Hope your gf likes her new Ubuntu laptop :)
You can convert to the home edition for free (for now at least)
Also you can disable secure boot and just install linux.
We already have “secure boot” BS. For now it’s easy to turn off but it’s only a matter of time before getting locked and forced everywhere.
Linux is quite well established now on home pc’s and servers to the dismay of Microsoft and Apple. I hated Secureboot , built into UEFI, during startup by verifying the digital signatures of firmware, drivers, and the OS bootloader. Reading into Deep State Mass surveillance helps:
https://www.printernational.co.uk/timmann/history.htm#surveillance
Nothing says that Linux could eventually evolve into the same thing or fail to ever really function for the masses.
https://youtu.be/HUEvRyemKSg might be relevant.
Turns out some people can predict the future if they pay attention
I kind of expect this to happen with Apple’s rumored $600 macbook. Since they just updated ipadOS to run like a locked down version of macOS. I bet they will offer this cheap mac with the same locked down OS since it will have a “phone” processor in it.
They will say this was a compromise needed, but the majority of people will not care. After a few years, the macs that are open will get more and more expensive.
I’m guessing Windows will slowly start to move in thie direction, but I think they will try to push their remote computers thing to accomplish this.
I’m not sure about bootloaders being locked, I am guessing there will always be something that is unlocked and able to run linux though. It is needed for servers and stuff like that. In the worst case, someone will likely sell arm or risc-v powered boards that can be used to run linux.
Microsoft are smart enough to not piss off every giant corporation and destroy their entire business overnight, so you can count on it never being forced by them.
pissing off customers never stopped them for decades different versions of office programs ran side by side with no issues. they auto uninstall other versions of office automatically while stopping the install with a big pop up about compatibility issues.
this impacts all businesses using old versions of access programs alongside more new versions of office with newer installers. along with a byzantine licensing model with bizarre “incompatibilities” between the same year versions in different licensing channels, yeah tell me how microsoft won’t piss off corpo and government clients.
they seem to specialize in pissing off corpo and gov clients.
Sounds like the businesses you’re talking about have incompetent IT staff.
This kind of stuff never happens overnight. It happens slowly, incrementally, and the people are never mad enough at too much sudden change to be motivated enough to do anything. People should feel good about the imposition of boundaries, and it helps that for the average user, the boundaries often result in a better user experience.
I don’t think you guys understand that forcing windows to only run approved by Microsoft software would literally break the world as we know it. Microsoft know this. There’s no way around it.
I was responding to this:
Microsoft is smart enough not to piss off every giant corporation
Yeah, and they can’t get rid of “sideloading” without literally killing their entire company because gigantic corporations, where they make the majority of their money, are the ones the most beholden to legacy software that would be blocked if they did. Banks, governments, hospitals, schools…….everything would not be able to function.
Well I think you’re moving the goalpoast a little here 😅, but believe me, they already do, lots of soft that doesn’t get around the windows defender.
You can literally always install software no matter what defender says. Did you not know this?
Wow shows you don’t know anything about computers 😂
Last time I used windows in a big corpo settings, there were so many things pudding off both us Devs but also IT.
Switch out a bad RAM stick? Spend an hour with IT.
Use a software? Spend an hour (or days) with IT
Compile your own software? Believe it or not, spend large amounts of time with IT
Like the compiler on a windows PC can’t work without different windows protection systems gets in the way, repeatedly. And then your executable, or some .d’ll just get wiped off the disk 😐🤷🏼♀️
I don’t think they do it intentionally, but big corpos don’t give a shit about their workers conditions, so if they were to enforce things (with backdoors ofc, so that if needed you can deactivate things, remember the unique installation code for windows like 95 or 98?) the grunts will just have to eat it up. And they would probably not have a much harder time, everything is already locked down hardware wise so they are used to all that jazz.
None of your examples at the start I’d that comment make sense or are true.
Also you’re talking about corporate policies for businesses that use windows, not windows itself. Management of devices is one of the biggest reasons why windows is the only real option for big corporations.
Oh I’m very absolutely talking about windows itself, it’s the reason you have go through so many loops to do the tiniest thing.
My point: Microsoft is already doing what you’re supposing they never will.
BTW your first phrase doesn’t make any sense?
They certainly wouldn’t roll it out overnight but they’ve had their long term targets on OS as a service since Windows 8 and these things tend to come bundled.
Nah, they know their limits. They will keep trying to make an optional locked down OS for regular users a thing, but there will always be a fully “unlocked” version available due to legacy software and the entire worlds reliance on it.
While microsoft also plays in the quarter to quarter economic BS they still have long term planning.
It’s precisely because they have a monopoly on enterprise class software that they could pull this off. That’s why the shift in euro-gov agencies to linux is such a big deal.
MS already has updates as a “free” service and windows insider which requires a paid azure sub which means they already use the threat of “security risks” to force companies to subscribe to azure, which is in effect equivalent to a sub to the OS.
I’m suggesting that they’re going to do what they’ve said they want to do. Just maybe on the longer term or in a novel way.
The biggest motivation they have to keep individual licenses OTP is it gets people used to the ecosystem (customer capture) and they’re massively profiting on all of
yourthat data.Making their OS subscription based is not what we’re talking about though. We’re talking about it becoming locked down and only running signed and approved software like Android is going to do.
That fundamentally breaks windows for most of the corporate world. Literally would break the world as we know it lol.
It’s not going to happen.
Motherboard manufacturers are not going to start making Windows only BIOS.
Microsofts target audience isn’t the private user. It’s companies. The money they make selling their OS to private persons are table scraps compared to their enterprise licenses. Any such initiative would fuck over every single enterprise customer.
It’s been attempted in two ways.
First is secure boot. There were a handful of computers sold that did not allow disabling of secure boot, or changing the loaded keys. So it was basically essentially a Windows only computer.
More recently is there was Microsoft Windows S. This was a cheap version of Windows Home that ran on low end computers and was locked to only allow installing apps from the Microsoft store. It was possible to unlock it but as I recall it required an additional fee.Enterprises almost all run Windows anyway so they DGAF.
Enterprises use a lot, and I do mean A LOT of custom software. Either developed in house or by others. They absolutely care.
What Microsoft does within their own OS, as the “S” version you’re talking about. That’s a non issue given you can just flash the drive and install whatever OS you want.
As for the concern that you’d somehow be unable to install another OS. Due to Secure Boot. I personally have never come across a computer that I’ve had full BIOS access to that didn’t allow disabling secure boot. Though some have been more cooperative than others. But maybe I’m just lucky.
But I’m also pretty sure there are linux distributions that support Secure Boot.
Secure Boot for what it’s intended to do, is a pretty good feature. Which is to stop unauthorized software from running before initiating your OS
I was talking about secure boot. If the computer only runs Windows, enterprise doesn’t care. If the computer only runs Windows S, it’s an absolute nonstarter in enterprise tons of apps aren’t on the app store. But Windows S is never targeted to enterprise, only low end home users.
Anything can support secure boot, the question is, are the keys included in the BIOS so it can run that particular OS without loading extra keys?
I’ve also not personally encountered a computer where secure boot couldn’t be disabled or the list of keys modified, but I’ve definitely heard about them existing.
Fedora supports secure boot out of the box
So does Ubuntu, but there is a catch. Secure boot relies on signature checking, so you can manually add the signature of your OS manually to the UEFI db, but can’t do that on locked UEFI. Major Linux providers went another route, they paid Microsoft to sign a
shimbinary, which in turn can verify and boot the matching Linux kernels. Microsoft refusing to sign shims would be a rather crippling move, but they would get a massive backlash from that.
17 and a half weeks
nah. 28 likely. I mean later.
IIRC, I had a PC (since sold) that had secure boot permanently enabled from the factory. That is, in spirit, a PC with a “locked bootloader”, but you might not even notice because many Linux distros have that Microsoft-blessed Linux loading shim… but it is still Microsoft inserting themselves between you and your hardware; they could decide in the next few years they no longer “support” Linux, hypothetically.
Eh, just means it isn’t plug and play. Once you have the hardware, you are the admin.
It may get tougher, but it’ll never be impossible.
Tell that to the Intel management engine or secure platform module
For phones Google gets to decide, as an os maker. For PCs, there are multiple OSses so hardware manufacturers get to decide.
I personally don’t see AMD or Intel doing that anytime soon, and if they do, at least Arm and Risc-V are making some good progress in the desktop space
Microsoft tried to get things going that way with “s”, but it didn’t take
I’m not an expert. But microsoft controls secure boot signing, right?
Microsoft is also involved in setting standards and influences manufacturers. I feel like the future where secure boot is the only option and were Microsoft holds the keys is likely.
Politicians and decision makers are not gonna save us. They like it when companies say it’s for security and they can slap on “it’s for the children”.
They’d have to completely kill the ability to build your own machine (the whole “IBM compatability” thing) and I don’t see that happening when almost every business and factory uses their own custom shit for specific niche reasons.
Not really. The pieces are already in place with UEFI and Secure Boot. All that would need to happen would be to force Secure Boot to be enabled, and only preload keys for an approved list of operating systems. With that, your fancy new motherboard may not be able to boot and run the OS of your choice.
Absolutely not, that would never happen. Why? Because there’s a load of stuff that runs on Windows that is ancient and only exists as legacy software and never receives updates.
If anything, Windows is the last operating system that will have locked bootloaders, because if they do, there’s gonna be some bank somewhere in the world suing them because their ancient counting software was originally made for Windows 3.0 back in the day and Microsoft has had to build their entire operating system around making sure that software continues to run.
They might have hardware requirements like the TPM chip, but they’re never going to make it so you can only install software approved by them, because they’ve got over 40 years of software they’d need to approve before they can do that, and they won’t.
Not to mention there will always be methods for and hackers jailbreaking devices. Even Windows 11’s TPM requirements have been defeated, anything else will be too.
