Subj : Re: Computer operating system of choice?
To   : boraxman
From : tenser
Date : Wed Feb 09 2022 03:11:51

On 08 Feb 2022 at 02:01a, boraxman pondered and said...
 
 bo> Maybe, but then I think that Linux wouldn't be Linux if it became
 bo> Windows/Mac OS.  I used to think it was important that Linux become more
 bo> appealing, but not anymore.  I'd rather keep it as a 'hobby OS'.  That
 bo> is its distinction, that you make the system your own, rather than
 bo> having it controlled by a central power.  For those who wants that
 bo> polished unified, I'm happy for them to choose MacOS instead.

Even if this were the case, which as others have pointed out it is
not, with any modern system (particularly the x86 types) Linux really
only gives you the illusion that you're in control of the system.

There is so much stuff that happens even before the x86 cores come
out of reset, mostly using closed-source binary blobs that you have
no control over whatsoever, that it's mind-boggling.  And the x86 cores
themselves run many billions of instructions of firmware code that,
again, most users have no control over (and has seriously dubious
provenance) before the boatloader even starts.  Everything from power
sequencing to DRAM training is under the control of some chunk of
software that comes from somewhere.  Then once the system is running
you still have the EC, maybe a BMC, plus SMM, ACPI flows, TrustZone
on ARM, etc.

Not to mention all the little processor cores running on various
peripherals using their own firmware.

If one were to count up the total number of CPUs in a single
modern system, even treating multicore CPUs as a single unit, it
would easily sum into the double or triple digits.  Linux (or,
really, any OS) runs on a tiny fraction of those with absolutely
no insight into what most of them are doing, or even what the cores
it "runs" are fully doing.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
 * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

.