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Developer Gavin L Rebeiro has posted[*see note below] a five-part article series at Techrights on how to deal with the ongoing Raspberry Pi fiasco by salvaging existing hardware with a replacement operating system.
- Part I: Acknowledgements
- Part II: Introduction
- Part III: Fundamentals
- Part IV: Doing The Task
- Part V: All The Rest
He covers the background, the technical principles, some methods for mitigation, proposes using NetBSD in place of the GNU/Linux, Raspberry Pi OS. Finally, he walks through installation of NetBSD.
We don't want to be spied on; what happens when we're faced with an operating system that spies on people? We throw it in the trash where it belongs! I am boycotting the Raspberry Spy myself (you're free to join me in doing so) but I don't want people to waste hardware that they already have. So we're going to walk through an interesting path of installing a different operating system on the Raspberry Spy; I want to show you a few things that will empower you to take greater control over your computing.
We'll gently walk through and explore the following: how to install an operating system on an embedded device (a Raspberry Spy, in this case) over a USB-to-UART bridge (UTUB). This is the main project we've got on our hands. Don't worry if you've never touched embedded systems before; everything here is accessible to people with a modest set of prerequisite knowledge and some basic apparatus.
We'll delve into things with more depth as we move forward with our project; if you don't understand something when you first encounter it, just keep reading.
NetBSD might be a bit of a leap for some, so it should be noted that there are other GNU/Linux distros for the Raspberry Pi which do not include the problems addressed above.
The focus of the series is on individual privacy, but a parallel threat exists for institutions because, after the recent changes, any use of Raspberrry Pi OS will show up at their most hostile competitor, Microsoft. The company has had a do-not-lose-to-Linux-at-any-cost attitude for decades and has various slush funds available to fund attacks. EDGI was one such program which did a lot of damage around the world and has been described in fair detail in the Comes v Microsoft case.
[* Ed's Note (2021-03-12): The author has let us know that his original article is available as a PDF, as techrights' version wasn't faithful. -- FP]
Previously:
(2021) Raspberry Pi Users Mortified as Microsoft Repository that Phones Home is Added to Pi OS
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Tuesday March 09 2021, @03:07AM (12 children)
Yeah, maybe it's because you did it right.
Always a good hypothesis. And sounds perfectly plausible.
Here's the thing though;
"Distros tend to offer more user-friendly software bundles as their default images to be more approachable to beginners (which is good, make the default the safe choice for people that don't know how to choose)"
That's just wrong, and shows you aren't even taking into account the information right in front of your face, "TFA" itself!
Everything that they tell you is "user-friendly" is actually "user-hostile." That's not completely true; but it's a lot closer than the inverse. The safe choice for people that don't know what to choose has always been very different from the default, and over time the variance has only increased; to the point that a 'safe choice for people that don't know what to do' is now practically, if not literally, impossible. Sensible settings in google chrome, for example, will break most popular websites instantly.
It's exactly the people that can't figure out how to do it right that are failed most spectacularly by this system of wide-open defaults. But even larger than that; it's the entire species. Insane defaults have created an ad industry, they buy lawyers, and they also buy Senators; and even the Judges too.
And one of the worst things a society might have to deal with; a corrupt judiciary.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 3, Touché) by Marand on Tuesday March 09 2021, @04:09AM (10 children)
No it doesn't, it shows that I'm talking about something completely different with that remark: making the default beginner-friendly by not assuming they know things like what a desktop environment is and how to choose one, what packages are needed to enable USB automount, how to configure and install Xorg, what to install to get working audio, and so on. You want the default download of your OS (distro) to cover all the bases because a beginner doesn't even know enough yet to have an idea of what the extent of things they don't know is, so you provide (possibly unnecessary) extras and more user-friendly optional things that not everyone needs, but enough people will likely want that you should include it just in case.
With a Linux distro you can start from there and try to remove and swap out things, but odds are you're going to have a lot of unnecessary extras to fight with, so while it's a good choice as the default installation option because it provides the easiest path for potential new users, it's not a good choice for someone that wants a more streamlined or customised experience. Even distros like Debian do this, with the desktop media providing a lot of potentially unwanted junk to make it easier for beginner or intermediate users to get started. The Raspberry Pi, though, is intended primarily as an educational and tinkerer's device, targeting people who will primarily be first-time Linux users, so the Pi OS defaults are aimed even more toward beginners and rightly so. That means it'll potentially end up with things that someone wanting a slim, headless server installation won't want, possibly sucking up extra CPU cycles and memory, but that's fine because that person isn't the intended use case and should be using a different image.
And this is not just an OS thing, "safe/friendly defaults but let people do something else if they want" is a good design strategy in general. Beginners typically take the path of least resistance, trusting that someone smarter and more knowledgeable than them made good decisions on their behalf, so you want to make that path the smart one for them. When you fail to do that you end up with footguns, like how the Lua programming making all variables global by default, leading to new users (of which Lua sees many because it's often used in gamedev for modding) making mistakes and getting confused by something that would have been easily avoided if the language had local scope be the default. Languages like C get a reputation for being unsafe and error-prone for similar reasons, because the default path tends to be riddled with landmines that you learn to avoid with experience but should never have been the default.
Anyway, the point is that you're talking about something different than I was with the random aside I added to my previous comment. You SHOULD be adding extra, possibly unnecessary things to a distro for people that don't know better yet, while giving them the ability to stray from that path as they learn enough to do so responsibly. Considering the increasing popularity of VS Code, that's even arguably true for including the MS repository into Pi OS. The problem with that wasn't that they did it at all, it's how they did it. It should have been added only to their default, prominently featured download, the one labeled "Raspberry Pi OS with desktop and recommended software" but left out of the "Raspberry Pi OS with desktop" and "Raspberry Pi OS Lite" images, and absolutely SHOULD NOT have been added retroactively to existing installs the way they did it. It makes as much sense (arguably more) as the recommended image including Mathematica, which is available but not provided by default with the "Lite" image. It was a mistake in process, not intent.
I do agree that a lot of times people use default selection in a user-hostile way (like Microsoft foisting mobile games onto users after new installs and sometimes upgrades), but that's a counter-example: things like that are bad defaults exploiting the lack of knowledge of some users. That kind of thing sucks, but most of the decisions made to decide "good" defaults for things don't fall into that category, especially in the FOSS world; instead, they're usually well-intentioned even if sometimes dumb decisions.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Arik on Tuesday March 09 2021, @04:52AM (9 children)
Name a single linux distro that's been vaguely popular in the past 20 years that didn't do all that.
Name. One.
"You want the default download of your OS (distro) to cover all the bases because a beginner doesn't even know enough yet to have an idea of what the extent of things they don't know is, so you provide (possibly unnecessary) extras and more user-friendly optional things that not everyone needs, but enough people will likely want that you should include it just in case."
Nope. Quite the opposite actually. Usually a long reply means someone really cared, but you don't seem to be paying attention at all!
I want the default "download" of my OS (distro) to give me "just the axe, ma'am" and then wait for instructions like a good little computer.
It's an /Operating System/. It provides the /Tools/ to /Operate/ the /System./
"(possibly unnecessary)"
No, no, no.
There is no such thing.
It's necessary. Or it ain't necessary. Pick one.
"Beginners typically take the path of least resistance, trusting that someone smarter and more knowledgeable than them made good decisions on their behalf, so you want to make that path the smart one for them."
Yeah, that's well-intentioned, and a good part of the problem.
But let's state it plainly. You just don't want the denser examples finding your number and calling you day and night.
You know, you can actually block numbers, in 2021?
Anyway, you took a lot of time to type in a lot of text that basically repeats the same propaganda I've been hearing my whole life. No idea who actually wrote it, but kudos on the legs at least.
It's just a combination of overblown and flat false. Yes, it's good for noobs if the os install gives you some decent, concise summary of terms etc. But it's got to be concise, and point to other resources. Ultimately, the OS install isn't supposed to be where you learn "basics of computing; what are puters, and does it have anything to do with magnets?"AKA CS000100.-994x
No. If you don't understand what you're doing, back out, go read the docs again.
The very WORST thing about MS with their OS is not the product (well wait in 2021 so it might finally be the product after all) but the ridiculous suggestion that they marketed it on to get to this point. That you could be not just "not technical" but positively computerphobic and without any sort of study or learning whatsoever you could now administer a computer.
Well, now they've finally gotten there. They administer your computer for you. And if they don't *currently* monitor every keystroke you enter in near-realtime, well it's only an update away.
What a high price to pay for such a thin illusion of convenience. They still won't read your mind and figure out how you made the screen go black, or tell you how to get it back.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Marand on Tuesday March 09 2021, @05:18AM (7 children)
Thanks for the reminder of why I usually ignore your comments and have them collapsed by default. I attempted to actually talk to you for a change and all you did was insult me, making claims of "propaganda" and suggestions that I'm repeating some party line (presumably paid shilling?) just for having an opinion that doesn't fully match yours. I don't quite get if your insane remark about "No idea who actually wrote it" is supposed to be implying I'm shilling for MS or Raspberry Pi or what, but it's pretty fucking offensive that I made the effort to actually discuss something just to be casually dismissed and told I didn't write it just because it wasn't what you wanted to hear. And all because I suggested that defaults should cover the majority of use cases and be accessible for people that won't know better, with more advanced options still made available for the people like most of us here that won't benefit from it.
Well, good job continuing to be the same unlikeable, holier-than-thou cunt you were when I first demoted your comments to -1 purgatory. Even on the rare occasions when you say something vaguely sensible it's not worth engaging with you and dealing with your obnoxious attitude. Who knows, maybe I'll try again in another five years when I have another lapse in good sense.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday March 09 2021, @06:08AM (2 children)
"Thanks for the reminder of why I usually ignore your comments and have them collapsed by default."
Umm, you're welcome?
Yeah, you're welcome. I'm going with "you're welcome." Final answer. <kick>
"I attempted to actually talk to you for a change and all you did was insult me"
Wait wait wait, wait, what?
Insult you?
Nah I just went back and reloaded and checked. I gave you props. Why you be trippin, yo?
"No idea who wrote it" - nah it's a meme, it's not you. You probably picked it up in childhood, before you remember maybe. We all swim in a sea of memes, the ones we absorb most deeply are the ones we have the hardest time to see.
That was no insult; to imply you're human? Chill. Here.
___
(__ `-._ _____
`-._ `-._ .' `.
`-._ `-._ .=========.
`._ /`-..- .
`-._ .
`-.._______.'
"Well, good job continuing to be the same unlikeable, holier-than-thou cunt"
Oy, oy, oy oy oy oy!
And he's done it. He went and called me a bloody c*nt, he did.
Marand; sir or madam or otherwise encharicaturated as your preference and circumstance might suggest or constrain;
purely at your own preference.
I assume you are a speaker of a variety of English well outside of direct US influence; of /ENGLISH/ English or perhaps a really old Aussie or Kiwi or something?
Yeah, you can't call anyone the "c word" mate. It's just not done.
Not in the US, not even in Canada. Gotta step over the line into Mexico, if you want to get away with that shite over here in the New World.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYaKUzax8xY
"Unlikeable"
/UNLIKEABLE/
I never asked you to like me.
NO ONE EVER ASKED YOU TO LIKE ME!
Cheers!
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 09 2021, @07:19AM (1 child)
This is a new intensity of autism from you. Or is it your Microserft brain implant malfunctioning? Either way, it is entertaining.
(Score: 1) by Arik on Thursday March 11 2021, @01:30AM
Just how long have you been watching, that you think you have a baseline?
"it is entertaining."
You're welcome.
You should make an account so I can remember who aren't.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 10 2021, @01:45AM
Marand has always been touchy this way. Was back in the day when I used to insult him for fun.
But, he came back. Glutton for insultitude, evidently! Marand! You are a doo-doo head! (Watch! The reaction should be fantastic!) How much does Micro$oft pay you to say such things? (Oh, that should make him blow! ) Hey, Marand, your whining has contributed nothing to the conversation. Even Arik is more of a Soylentil than you are!
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 10 2021, @04:26AM (2 children)
Luckily they use such an atrocious font making it much easier to just scroll past. Nothing of value will be lost.
(Score: 2) by Marand on Wednesday March 10 2021, @06:41AM (1 child)
That was actually what led to me setting him to foe and -6 karma modifier originally. A few of us tried asking him to stop using the code blocks for general comments and his response was basically "if you don't like it change your font". Tried pointing out that we're using the fonts as intended and the problem was that he's misusing code blocks for general text, which forces other people to see the wrong fonts at random. He doubled down claiming that fixed-width is the proper way fonts should look and if people don't like it they should override their browser's fixed-width fonts with variable-width ones.
So he basically suggested that everybody on the site should change their code fonts to be bad for reading code just because he wants to see his text as fixed-width but doesn't want to change his font to do it, which is asinine. So I decided a better solution was to fudge the karma system to collapse his comments instead, because that's the kind of shitty attitude I don't generally want to interact with anyway. Win/win.
Every so often he'll respond to a comment of mine and I get a reminder of why his comments are auto-collapsed. I have more pleasant interactions with the ACs at 0 usually.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Arik on Tuesday March 16 2021, @01:42AM
OMG you're one of /those/ idjits.
And even after obsessing for all these months or years blaming me for your own inability or unwillingness to understand how computers work, you still don't have a clue...
"just because he wants to see his text as fixed-width"
That's what I'm talking about. You're so disoriented you don't even know which side is up!
Post mode has nothing whatsoever to do with which fonts I instruct my browser to use! The server is not the client! I see your posts in the same font as mine!
"I have more pleasant interactions with the ACs"
Yes, I'm sure it's more pleasant for you to deal with someone closer to your own mental level.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Tuesday March 09 2021, @11:09AM
10100000101110110010101110001010101001001100011101010000001011100100100100011110110011101001010100100010100101111000000000011111101110101011011011000100011011110000000000111111010010110001011011110010010000011100110100001001110000000111100111100101101001110000111010101110010010011101011110101000111101111000100111011001101010001010111000010001110011010110001000000110110001010000010101010000111001011101100111111110110011011111100111110011010110011101010111100011111101010011100100011100101010001010111000100000100011000111010110101001101001000100100011100000101100000010110011010010001011111110110110110111011001010000100011110010101010111001110100110001100000111000001010110100110101110101101001111100011011011110110101101111111110010011100110110011000000101110011010100101110010101001010100100011000010110110010101100111001001010110001100000001000100010101010101110010110101011001110111100110011011100011001100011110010000000111111111000110111010100000111101000000011100101100010011001000001110010010011111010100011110111011010110101001111000100101011000101110110000111111011000011000101101101000001001011110111011000000110001111111110010011100100111101110100111100111011010001100010011011100001100010111001110011001001011110111110100000110000001111000001011001011110100101110010011111000110001110010000011010110010010001011010100001011011000010000001111100001100011101010110111011101111000011110010100101110101101011100110101010110110011111111001101011000010011001111100001100110110111011000110110011101100101100000000011111110110111010111001110000101100100010001101001000010111111101001111111100101010001101101000101101011110001100111011111001000110011010111010010111001110101110101011110000011101111111110110001100011100010100101101111110010110001000001010011101111111100100000110011110000001000001101110011001011100111101010111101001010011001010111011011010000111010000011100100000010111000101110010101011111010001001111110011111001000001000010110110100111100111111100011001000111100111101000000000011000000010001101010100001101110010110100
(Nb: minimal defaults - I don't bother to include the decompression key)
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Tuesday March 09 2021, @03:17PM
Indeed. Your self-interest, your very life is being co-opted, controlled, and tossed out as trash when you are no longer useful. It's good that you recognize this. You may be in a position to protect yourself from the coming Starving Times.