I don’t recommend it unless you just want it for storage or whatever else it does out of the box. It’s basically impossible to tinker with it because it has so many layers of abstraction. At least that was my impression when I tried to edit their nginx config. It had like 2000 lines so I just gave up.

If you want a server that runs services that you download from the internet, don’t buy it. Look at it as a box that does the thing that it promises to do, not as a computer. If you want it to do a different thing, buy a different box that does that. Kinda like a TV. It’s technically a computer that runs some kind of linux but to the user it’s a monitor that also shows videos from the internet.

Also it’s perfectly fine to buy a “NAS black box” but maybe not something I’d buy if I wanted to get into selfhosting. I’d buy it if I wanted to have a NAS running at home with the least amount of “self” in “selfhosting” that’s feasable.

Proxmox is nice for beginners. This is a nice tutorial: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLT98CRl2KxKHnlbYhtABg6cF50bYa8Ulo

Proxmox has nice UI for managing Linux Containers (LXC). They act like a computer inside a computer with the advantage that you can clone them. So you can basically save and load them whenever you succeed or fail at something. Proxmox also allows you to install Turnkey Linux containers which have the software you want to run preconfigured in them so that’s also good for beginners.

Only downside is that this is not declarative so it won’t be as scalable as docker or nix. It might be more worth it to learn docker from the beginning but that would also be less friendly for a beginner.

It was a joke about the fact that PostmarketOS considers only QEMU a “main” device. Every real phone is in the “community” section because they’re too buggy. So the only good device to run that OS on is a virtual one running inside your desktop.

If you want all drivers in the mainline kernel, you clearly cannot handle the software on your own. The reason why linux phones suck are the drivers that are either bad or don’t exist. The desktop (or palmtop I guess) environments are pretty usable if you run it on something with good drivers (like QEMU - my favorite phone).

It doesn’t make any sense. If I make a box with a screen that runs linux (idk for ordering lunch in school canteen) and only update the OS by physically removing the hard drive and installing it from different computer, does that justify it being proprietary?

On the other end a circuit can be changed e.g. by tuning a potentiometer or straight up changing a component. That’s not any different than changing a value of a variable in the firmware. There is no actual difference in hardware and software, just different level of abstraction like C vs Python.

Yep FSF’s bizarre anti software freedom stance does not make sense. Luckily the more sensible Right to Repair “schematics or die” is much more popular. So in the end it does not really matter what the FSF thinks and the damage done is minimal.

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 entremovedtify 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)

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