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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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How would Linux have been today if locked bootloaders were as common in the 90s as they are now on ARM devices? (programming.dev)

submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Basically the title

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago (6 children)

Seconding that's a not-how-things-were.

The lovely thing with legacy architectures (6502, 68k, x86, z80, etc.) that were in use during that time is that they were very very simple: all you needed to do was put executable code on a ROM at the correct memory address, and the system would boot it.

There wasn't anything required other than making sure the code was where the CPU would go looking for it, and then it'd handle it from there.

Sure, booting an OS meant that you needed whatever booted the CPU to then chain into the OS bootloader and provide all the things the OS was expecting (BIOS functions, etc.) but the actual bootstrap from 'off' to 'running code' was literally just an EPROM burner away.

It's a lot more complicated now, but users would, for the most part, not tolerate removing the ability to boot any OS they feel like, so there's enough pressure that locked shit won't migrate down to all consumer hardware.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 17 hours ago

but users would, for the most part, not tolerate removing the ability to boot any OS they feel like, so there's enough pressure that locked shit won't migrate down to all consumer hardware.

what makes you think that?

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