Matthew Garrett

> I mean, https://www.phoronix.com/review/amd-ryzen7-7840u

So, they took a cutting edge Windows PC, slapped Linux on it, and it didn't work well.

How well did OSX do when they tried it? Clearly, OSX isn't ready for the desktop! No wonder nobody runs it!

Modern computers are complex enough that they can work well with Windows, OSX, or Linux, but they don't work well with more than one of them (unless the designers work really hard). See, for example, how to reboot: https://mjg59.livejournal.com/137313.html

If you want to run Linux on a computer, buy it preinstalled, with support. Anything else is an exercise in chasing down small glitches, as you describe. (This happens for Windows too! The difference is that the laptop vendor has a team of people (the system integration team) to fix the issues, either by modifying drivers, modifying the firmware, or having the ODM change the hardware. If you slap Linux on some random bit of Windows kit, you get to be the system integration team, but with only one of three avenues open to you to fix the glitches. And that only halfway, since you cant get the OEM or ODM to give you the time of day. And that's assuming you're a proficient kernel hacker.)

Slapping Linux on a Windows box is a mug's game. The only way to win is not to play.

I'm reminded of http://mjg59.livejournal.com/108257.html :

"POSIX says this is fine, so any application that expected this behaviour is already broken by definition. But this is rules lawyering. POSIX says that many things that are not useful are fine, but doesn't exist for the pleasure of sadistic OS implementors. POSIX exists to allow application writers to write useful applications. If you interpret POSIX in such a way that gains you some benefit but shafts a large number of application writers then people are going to be reluctant to use your code. You're no longer a general purpose filesystem - you're a filesystem that's only suitable for people who write code with the expectation that their OS developers are actively trying to fuck them over."

GCC doesn't, or at least shouldn't, exist to implement the ANSI standard. It exists to help people to write useful programs.

> but the screenshot and presentation mode changing ones are just Super+Shift+S and Super+P

For the presentation mode key, it used to be its own independent key, but Microsoft changed its mind and told manufacturers to make it send Win+P instead. Some laptop manufacturers made it depend on the Windows version (through the ACPI _OSI method), so if you pretend to be an older Windows version, it'll have the former behavior instead of Win+P (though doing so could have other negative consequences, see https://mjg59.livejournal.com/85923.html).

Unfortunately, this was long ago enough (or the search engines got bad enough at searching old stuff) that I'm not finding the place where I originally read about that; the most I could find was a StackOverflow answer (https://askubuntu.com/questions/62319/is-there-an-equivalent-to-win-p-switch-video-output-hotkey/62598#62598).

> And recall, OEMs can always ship with Win8 logo and not use hardening (or even UEFI at all).

Sorry? I'm confused on this one.

* From the MS slides ( http://video.ch9.ms/build/2011/slides/HW-457T_van_der_Hoeven.pptx ): "UEFI and secure boot harden the boot process [...] Required for Windows 8 client"

* From the Garrett post ( http://mjg59.livejournal.com/138973.html ): "Microsoft requires that machines conforming to the Windows 8 logo program and running a client version of Windows 8 ship with secure boot enabled"

* From the IT World post linked up here: "And not just any old UEFI layer, either, but secure UEFI. Meaning a hardened boot process"

What am I mis-reading or missing? I'm not being testy, I just think you must have spotted something I missed. Thanks

The contemporary misinterpretation of the mattress aside, RMS already had already earned his reputation in the 90s, as had at least one other OSS luminary of the time.

Case in point: RMS's incredibly uncomfortable St iGNUcius routine was already legendary.[0]

Does he intend for it to be awkward at best, and offensive at worst? I doubt it. Has people told him that it is not received as he intends? Definitely. Does he change his behavior to better reflect his purported views of inclusiveness? Nope.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter what you intend your actions to be interpreted, it only matters how they actually are interpreted. That failure to adapt to clear feedback, is problem.

[0] From 2009 https://mjg59.livejournal.com/113408.html

Other way around: the original spec did not require vendors to support disabling UEFI secure boot or using "custom mode" (meaning installing your own key). See http://mjg59.livejournal.com/139232.html for one reference to that: "Windows 8 certification does not require that the user be able to disable UEFI secure boot, and we've already been informed by hardware vendors that some hardware will not have this option."

Microsoft changed the spec in the wake of the controversy around UEFI secure boot. The current version of the spec (available from http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/hh748200) does mandate the ability to use custom mode or disable UEFI secure boot, for non-ARM systems only.