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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 9th, 2023

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  • Only if those device makers are willing to use it. And that has always been the tightrope linux has walked.

    Its very history as a x86 platform means it has needed to develop drivers where hardware providers did not care. So that code needed to run on closed hardware.

    It was bloody rare in the early days that any manufacturer cared to help. And still today its a case of rare hardware that needs no non free firmware.

    Free hardware is something I’ll support. But it is stallman et als fight not the linux kernel developers. They started out having to deal with patented hardware before any one cared.


  • proprietary

    Well related to the owner is the very definition of proprietary. So as far as upstream vs not available for upstream is concerned. That is what the term is used for in linux.

    So yep by its very definition while a manufacture is using a licence that other distributions cannot embed with their code. Marking it proprietary is how the linux kernal tree was designed to handle it.

    EDIT: The confusion sorta comes from the whole history of IBM and the PC.

    Huge amounts of PC hardware (and honestly all modern electronics) are protected by hardware patients. Its inbuilt into the very history of IBMs bios being reverse engineered in the 1980s.

    So as Linux for all its huge hardware support base today. It was originally designed as a x86(IBM PC) compatible version of Unix.

    As such when Stallman created GPL 3 in part as a way of trying to end hardware patients. Linux was forced to remain on GPL 2 simply because it is unable to exist under GPL 3 freedom orientated restrictions.

    The proprietary title is not seen as an insult. But simply an indication that it is not in the control of the developers labelling it.




  • Yeah im not an apple fan. (My brother would have a heart attack if I didnt say that. He loves them).

    But the fact they controll both hardware and software means they can run on lower specs. They dont use it as well as they could. But android having to allow others to develop hardware. Provides a bit more ability for manufactures to implement less efficient drivers. This is why some higher spec low value stuff seems so slow compared to equal speced cheaper Samsung stuff etc.


  • Well nowadays yes. But when the term smartphone was invented. Really not.

    The 1st iPhone was way lower spec then many high end phones of the time. Mainly Nokia but others as well.

    Early androids and others def had no specific specs that differed them from other high-end phones such as Symbian Win CE (as crap as the OS was but then so was the smartphone mareted version recreated later on)

    Seriously, marketing was the only thing that differed them from phones like the N95 and communicator etc etc.

    And as I mentioned, the locked store front. That really seem to be the main difference but really I still find non-advantageous myself.





  • High use Blender users tend to avoid AMD for the reasons you point out.

    This leads to less updates due to amd users not being to interested in the community.

    It is an issuw without any practicle solution. Because as I need a long overdue update. Again nvidia seems the only real choice.

    Everyone is sorta forced to do that unless we can convince amd users to just try out blender and submit results.

    So hi any AMD users who dont care about blender.

    Give it a try and submit performance data please.








  • Cool. At the time, it was one of the best. Although, I also liked sun-os.

    I also worked with VMS a lot after uni. Hated using it. But had to respect the ideals behind it.

    But watching the growth of Linux has been fantastic. In 2024. It does seem to have out evolved all the others. ( Evolved, defined as developed the ability to survive by becoming so freaking useful. )

    I am starting to think it is time for a micro kernel version, though.



  • Late 1990s my uni had unix workstations HPUX.

    So all projects etc were expected to be done on those. Linux at the time was the easy way to do it from home.

    By the time I left uni in 98. I was so used to it windows was a pain in the butt.

    For most of the time since I have been almost 100% linux. With just a dual boot to sort some hardware/firmware crap.

    Ham radio to this day. Many products can only do updates with windows.