lapisnev

Don't squeeze me, I fart

Things that make you go 🤌. Weird computer stuff. Artist and general creative type. Occasionally funny. Gentoo on main. I play rhythm games!

Inkscape Monofur font Cohost PLUS!

You can post SVG files like photos on this website! Spread the word!


plumpan
@plumpan

But the current accepted standard of how ARM devices boot, specifically how you're reliant on an image you have no control over, ends up just generating a ton of devices that can't be updated when the manufacturer decides they don't care anymore. I'm not just talking about phones either. Handheld (gaming) devices, Pi knockoffs, network gear, even real Pis to an extent. Most of these devices it's very easy for the hardware maker to go "oh we'll just run our own patched uboot" and when that image needs updating you're 100% reliant on them.

As we know, this means that the company will drop all support, usually within a year or two, and ask for more money to ship you a new thing across the world. This is not acceptable. No, I don't care about your "oh well this company still gave me an image!" example, the point is we shouldn't need to rely on the original hardware manufacturer to maintain software updates.

Until there's a standard boot process that is at least open enough to prevent devices from becoming e-waste (ala UEFI), they're trash on borrowed time and should be avoided as much as possible.


You must log in to comment.

in reply to @plumpan's post:

i've never had problems using a device because the u-boot version was old. old u-boot still boots up to date linux kernels just fine.

vendors kernels are a bit more a problem, but even then, most boards ive had provide the sources for the vendor kernels, its just inconvenient if you want to use up to date kernel versions and nobody's ported the drivers to mainline

updating userspace on top of all that typically still works just fine, except for the most egregious vendors who also try to ship you userspace blobs (fuck those guys, for real). I don't actually own any boards that need that, and like, i have never in my once felt like vendor kernels or u-boot "obsoletes" the device in any way. I can (and do!) run the latest NixOS on a raspberry pi 2. I can, and have, run up to date userspace on a C.H.I.P.

Now, the C.H.I.P. i have more concern with, because installing updates to that thing's flash (without it booted to give you FS access over the network) requires a custom vendor toolchain to actually do the programming. That's it's own story. I'm very much against a board that I can't update by writing some bits to an SD card. It's annoying, I have a VM specifically for it and I shouldn't have to. Plus the flash is going to wear out.

But for any of them that boot from SD, I do not consider any of them as if they are on "borrowed time". I see no future in which they suddenly stop being able to boot my shit, or I suddenly stop being able to apply security patches to the TLS stack, image decoders, browsers, etc. (the real things that obsolete phones). It's really not that big of a deal