2010

Wed, Sep 8

<12:33 EEST> After a couple of months of waiting, I finally reported the Appletouch bug on the kernel bugzilla. It turned out the problematic overflow patch had already been reverted in 2.6.36-rc1 in early August, but it had not been corrected in stable releases. Apparently, this report might just be the little nudge that was needed to propagate the fix.

<12:39 EEST> On a related note, I have been following the recent PS3 jailbreak efforts, notably the one that runs on Nokia tablets by kakaroto. It may seem like a welcome fix to Sony's removal of the OtherOS function, but it is far from a complete solution. The jailbrak allows running your own code, but it is different from running Linux inside the virtualized environment of OtherOS. Most of the discussion is about backing up your games on the HD instead of running Linux or any other custom code. But maybe that will come eventually, and I might actually get a used PS3 for some Linux experiments?

Now Sony has already released a firmware update to counter this particular USB attack. Other jailbreaks will likely follow, especially as more of the hardware/software internals are now exposed, and nobody is strictly forced to update. However, why would anyone pay a company for being such a dick?

If you s/pay/reward/, this could make a little more sense. If Sony is losing money for each console, and making it up in game prices, then non-gaming Linux hackers may feel like they are both screwing an evil company, and getting some nice hardware for themselves. An obvious case of a lin-lin situation.

However, pure Free software advocates have other reasons besides money to stay away from such businesses. RMS uses a Lemote Yeeloong netbook with completely open-source firmware, plus its Chinese MIPS64 system is technically interesting as well. I have been considering getting one of these myself, even if there are even more interesting machines, specs-wise, on the market. For instance Toshiba AC100 with a dual-core 1-GHz ARM. It even has HDMI output, so after a decade of connecting digital laptops/netbooks to digital displays/projectors with analogue cables, things might get sensible again.

But the AC100 runs Android by default, a particularly nasty example of using an open platform to build a closed system. While open source, many Android machines suffer from a kind of Tivoization, so it is hard to install a custom distro. In this case there is a definite case for customization, as I for one want something more than a smartphone OS in a fully capable netbook.

Even if you could install a proper distro on the AC100, there is still a question of future driver availability. Currently, it is quite possible to install Gentoo on a Tegra system, but many drivers are either closed, or in Nvidia's outdated custom kernel branch. So there is no guarantee that you can keep updating a Tegra with future software. The mobile scene is a particularly fast-paced one at the moment, and shiny new models will come and go. Thus the GNU/RMS mentality can be a very practical choice that ensures the future of the hardware you own.