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A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.

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Built-in software ‘death dates’ are sending thousands of schools’ Chromebooks to the recycling bin (www.mercurynews.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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There are few things quite as emblematic of late stage capitalism than the concept of "planned obsolescence".

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I have a 15 year old laptop that can still browse the web and play YouTube videos just fine because PC is a standardized platform with an open standard bootloader and a BIOS/UEFI system designed to abstract the hardware so the OS doesn't have to be tailor-made to the hardware. Mobile devices are absolute shit in this regard. Why does the OS have to be specifically built to target one particular device?

It shouldn't. End of question. This applies to Android, ChromeOS, and Apple devices equally.

I'm glad mobile Linux is starting to take off and there seem to be some standards emerging around ARM booting, even if it is still an absolute shit show compared to the standardization of UEFI/BIOS on x86/x86-64. I know some ARM systems can UEFI boot but it's few and far between still so most devices still need a tailored kernel at least. That said, ARM Linux doesn't need the entire freaking stack tailored to a device like Android and iOS do.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Couldn't agree more. Every computer I have, no matter how old, can connect and do most things fine.