Linux Phones and Unlocked Bootloaders?
Or are computers gonna just go the smartphone route and you can’t instal another OS?
I mean, Chrombooks are the first example of computers being more locked down. Will compouter manufacturers do the same? Mifrosoft now requires TPM on windows 11, could they make “Secure Boot” mandatory for windows 12? (Thereby preventing a linux install)
We already saw closed computers - Chromebooks. They’re still around, but they didn’t really catch on.
We are seeing more open phones, over time.
But to answer your question about Microsoft, specifically, oh yes. (I expect/fear that) Hardware produced specifically for Windows is going to get locked down much harder, soon. How else will they continue to ship spyware into people’s homes?
(I believe that) People who want privacy are going to need to choose their PC hardware much more carefully, in the near future.
Idk that Chromebooks count as being super locked down when most of them can run Linux apps.
I mean…sort of? I used some advanced computer knowledge last time I ran anything interesting on a Chromebook. I was manually installing basic missing shell utilities, just to get other stuff to run. (Edit: sounds like it’s much better today, than last time I tried!)
Maybe they have opened ChromeOS up more, since?
But you make a good point. ChromeOs is more intentionally minimalist than intentionally locked down. The OS didn’t actively fight my adding things, there just wasn’t much there to work with.
You can install a full Linux distro now. At a high level it’s basically like WSL2 for windows.
I had to do professional software development work on one at one point. It was completely cursed but it worked.
Oh, that’s cool! And yeah, sounds kind of cursed, too.
This will be the result of requiring TPM 2.0 on Windows 11 computers.