As far as I know it’s also less documented. People have dug really deep into Intel ME that they even found a bit that disables most of the ME.

On the other hand AMD is planning to use coreboot compatible open firmware in the next EPYC generation. Knowing AMD, it will eventually come to the consumer market too. (We’ll see if it will be available before Red Hat drops x11)

Also there was a phoronix article recently that Intel is too messing around with Coreboot on Xeon.

It sounded like you got annoyed that I was guessing and it sounded like you tried to make it clear to me that the guess was not helpful to you with the use of sarcasm. I guess I misunderstood, sorry.

Regarding the actual questions: You asked how does it compare to Coreboot. Canoeboot is actually coreboot, just slightly modified to work with Free Software Foundation’s rules but these rules are kind of absurd. See [1]. Libreboot is also modified Coreboot but one that’s actually good. The difference between them is that Libreboot should be a bit easier to install and that they support different hardware.

In terms of battery life the same laptop with or without Coreboot should perform the same. Coreboot really only handles the booting. Battery life should depend on the “EC firmware”, which is like a second chip on your motherboard that handles stuff like blinking LEDs or checking if your lid is opened or closed. It also depends on the OS itself so Linux vs Windows will make a difference. Canoeboot is an exception because it does not include “microcode updates” for ideological reasons. Microcode is code that runs on a “CPU inside of your CPU”. Not updating it will A) make your CPU buggy and vulnerable to attacks like Spectre [2] and B) maybe even have worse battery life because Microcode can control the voltage your CPU runs at. More voltage -> more power (P ~ V^2)

[1] https://libreboot.org/news/policy.html

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectre_(security_vulnerability)

Well if it were closed source, it would be harder to repackage proprietary apps because you would not know how the snap “root filesystem” translates to $DISTRO root filesystem.

Because some apps are only packaged as snaps so if you want them to be accessible to users, you have to install snapd. Flatpak can still be the default which on non-Canonical distros already is. Which why I don’t even worry about snap becoming the standard.

I haven’t read the multi episode argument between him and the person from freedesktop but the more I see comments like yours the more I’m inclined to side with him. (Though skimming his linux related blogs makes him look like an edgy kid to me.)

Your first source does not prove he is a nazi sympathizer. It just says he does not want to ban nazis from his discord. That’s 2 different things. It could for example mean that he does not want to ban people that some person labels nazis. (everyone on reddit that disagrees with me is a nazi)

The second source is made from a clown. That’s the same guy that’s suspected of doing the Stallman hitpiece. (it was at some point hosted from his IP or something) That article is full of half-truths. For example it frames Stallman’s opinions on age of consent like he is a sex offender. Or his jokes about not caring about what will happen with his body after his death like he goes around munching.

I guess my point is that overblowing things only digs deeper trenches between the “sides” for no reason. I am not arguing that he is innocent, just that your comment might make some people think that “the wokies are trying to cancel vaxry” and ignore even legitimate critiques of him (or generally ${CONTROVERSIAL_PERSON}).

You simply use a different packaging format as I said in the previous comment.

I’m not arguing whether snap or flatpak is better. Flatpak is better.

But your arguments are going against each other. You disagree that FSF should tell you what software you can use but then you want to tell other users what software they can use. If you use flatpak despite of FSF’s opinions, you should let people use snap despite of your opinion.

You are confused and mean. You cannot compare 2 different laptops and say that one has worse battery management because of coreboot. You would need to have the same laptop with and without coreboot to do any comparison.

I don’t really get what you are trying to say in the second paragraph but Canoeboot is not a good daily driver because it’s basically a “drug substitute” for GNU dummies. The author of it does not recommend using it. Use Libreboot instead as it does not break your CPU.

My guess: Generally it should not be that different since most of it is handled by the EC firmware. (Proprietary is OK in FSF’s eyes if it’s baked into the hardware) But Canoeboot does not include microcode updates which could affect the CPU’s power management. (Clocks speed, Vcore, etc.)

Ok but KDE has official Snap packages so they already are “legitimizing it”. Also snap won’t be able to entshittify anything. Snapd is still open source, so you can just repackage the software for different package system.

This is a stupid argument. In FSF’s eyes even having nonfree repository (ie. for drivers) is bad so this is completely irrelevant for anyone considering flatpak or snap. Both have nonfree stuff in there.

mainly hobbyists or some very specific feature. For example antiX for old hardware or Spiral Linux for the better installer, gaming specific distros for gaming etc. Also there are protest distros which advertise not having something - usually SystemD.

Don’t introduce proprietary crap just so companies can profit off of it.

I agree but I think it’s the user who should be able to make the informed choice (ie. during installation)

But flatpak also brings a lot of bloat. That’s the point of these 2 formats. You are trading bloat for portability.

The question here is not which one but why not both[*]? Also the target audience for this distro doesn’t know how to add repos, that’s the point of it.

[*] the answer is that Snap Store has had malware in it multiple times but that could imo be solved by a disclaimer

This is highly unlikely. Snapd is open source so you can just repackage the software for your distro of choice. I don’t think giving users the ability to use both Flatpak and Snap is bad. Though I would put Snap behind a disclaimer due to Snap Store’s history.

it’s actually the other way. Canonical has had troubles policing Snap Store from malware

in case you have not solved it, it’s easy on Sway. man sway-output (kinda) tells you how to do it. Here’s an example sway config line:

output HDMI-1 res --custom 1921x1081@61Hz

You can even change CRT timings like front porch, if you want that.

Don’t worry, the whole thing is that GNU boot contains proprietary firmware for testing coreboot. The only distros affected are GNU Boot and Canoe Boot. Upstream coreboot has that testing firmware there intentionally so it’s silly to call it “affected”.

FSF is doing great stuff for the world but I think FOSS is kinda held back by being led by nerds that are “a bit different”. (edit: I mean that with respect. These nerds are surely nice people and great coders but imo not great philosophical leaders)

It’s pretty good with adaptive sync and nVidia Reflex otherwise it’s terrible. Reflex seems to work on linux too so I guess single player linux gamers will be happy.

Useless blabbering incoming: With that said I am a proud frame generation hater. On its own it effectively halves your frame rate even though the frame counter will say that it doubled it. With Reflex the latency is not “that bad” but still I don’t get why anyone would want that. The reason I want more frames is better responsiveness. I cannot really tell the difference between 60 Hz and 120 Hz video. I’ve seen Avatar 2 at high refresh and did not really notice anything (other than that the movie sucked). But I can tell that my mouse feels like it’s sliding on jelly.

Obviously it’s great for the people that like it. I won’t be like the wayland dev who blocked the tearing protocol (aka. just allowing frames to show on screen as soon as they are created) because they did not use it.

I mean their August 2023 blog post was basically “We were busy, sorry for not posting updates.” So considering you can still normally buy and receive a product from them, they are probably busy again. (or don’t want to write blog posts) Which doesn’t mean Pine64 is dead, just that you won’t get updates.

Imo it’s good that they aren’t releasing another useless product but it’s a shame that the Pine Note isn’t available for purchase now that it has matured. Would have been such a cool device.

I think you are confusing “making another fedora fork for a laptop brand” with “porting a booloader to the device” or “writing a driver for the screen”. Simply put you would not be able to use the hardware without the software. Outsourcing it to the community makes the hardware cheaper but the sideeffect is that the software will be crappy even after years of development. For some reason people aren’t very keen on writing the low level stuff.

If you compare the Espruino smart watch to the Pine64 smartwatch, it’s a night and day difference. My guess is that it’s because Espruino handles the low level stuff and let community do the fun stuff, while Pine64 leaves everything on the community. Imo you need a fulltime developer who actually spends time looking in the datasheet and figuring out, how to properly put the PineTime to sleep, not just people who peek into the docs every Saturday.