Notices by Leah Rowe is not a Rowebot (libreleah@mas.to), page 4

So I'm installing Qubes for a customer. I'm not usually one to complain about things, but I'll make an exception. Perhaps even to their mailing list:

Qubes installer is the least intuitive ever. It finishes, then a little button appears to click "next" but it's hidden in plain sight, and nothing changes on the screen to highly and visibly demonstrate to go next.

Same for configuration in general. I think it's still doing something so I leave it, but it finished ~30 minutes ago.

Bad UI design.

HP EliteBook 820 G2 added to Libreboot, and I now sell it with Libreboot pre-installed:

https://minifree.org/product/libreboot-820/

Broadwell SoC inside. Better power efficiency and graphics performance than the X230/T440p I currently sell. Patch: https://browse.libreboot.org/lbmk.git/commit/?id=401c0882aaec059eab62b5ce467d3efbc1472d1f

I announced it on Libreboot news: https://libreboot.org/news/hp820g2.html

Install guide: https://libreboot.org/docs/hardware/hp820g2.html

Libreboot replaces proprietary BIOS/UEFI. I sell with Debian, or other Linux/BSD of your choice. I lead the Libreboot project; sales fund my work.

If any of my readers are competent web designers, please get in touch. I don't need anything fancy (probably very little / no backend code).

I know someone who is working on a graphics design project, and their work is very good. They've asked me to set up a website for them.

I will maintain all the infrastructure, set up emails etc, I'm competent at that - but I suck at web *design*. I used to do it, in the 2000s, but my knowledge now is quite dated.

So, I wish to hire. Please get in touch!

Nice paywall blocker:

Use "Bypass Paywalls Firefox Clean" https://gitlab.com/magnolia1234/bypass-paywalls-firefox-clean

It was nuked from the mozilla addon store due to DCMA order so you know it's legit. Source code on git. You can just install it from their repo. I use it and it's great.

there is also one that should work on chromium but i don't use it: https://gitlab.com/magnolia1234/bypass-paywalls-chrome-clean

With this, one can read sites like New York Times easily. I also recommend Ublock Origin adblocker, Privacy Badger and "I still don't care about cookies"

I'm happy to announce price reductions, for several upgrades on https://minifree.org/ -

* Libreboot T440p: £20 reduction on quad-core upgrades (i7-4700MQ) - now 60, not 80

* Libreboot T440p and X230: £20 reduction on 2TB SSD upgrades - now 40, not 60

* T440p and X230: £20 reduction on 2nd SSD

Libreboot installed. I'm Libreboot founder, and lead dev; sales fund my work. Libreboot replaces proprietary BIOS/UEFI firmware, improving security and it boots faster

Your choice of Linux distro/BSD

Random fun fact: Chile was building an analog of our modern internet way back in the 1970s. A massive, national communications network for business and government to coordinate efficiently. The engineer (Stafford Beer) who designed it was from Surrey, in the UK, and worked for the Allende goverment that was building this system.

After the 1973 coup, General Pinochet had the system destroyed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cybersyn

Had it caught on, we might have had global internet in our homes in the 1970s.

Libreboot laptops on https://minifree.org/ now come with 1TB SSD or 2TB SSD; the 480GB SSD option is gone, and now 1TB is the default. 2TB is the upgrade option.

I sell laptops with Libreboot pre-installed, and your choice of Linux distro or a BSD (e.g. OpenBSD, FreeBSD).

Libreboot replaces proprietary BIOS/UEFI firmware, offering faster boot speeds and greater security than proprietary firmware. I'm the founder of Libreboot, and its lead developer. These sales fund my work, and my research.

This customer is getting FreeBSD. Libreboot T440p laptop, with stable release FreeBSD 13.2 and Xfce. Everything configured.

Yeah and the first thing I do is install Vim when configuring a system, FreeBSD included!

My company: https://minifree.org/

I sell laptops with Libreboot pre-installed, which replaces proprietary BIOS/UEFI firmware. Libreboot offers greater security and faster boot speeds, plus many more features. I'm the lead developer and founder of Libreboot; sales fund the project.

One of my aunts is visiting and she's what you would call the "cool aunt".

I was telling her about Libreboot and she instinctively understood it, what it's about, things about it from the past year or so, how it started, the *ideology* behind it and that of the wider free software movement.

She is now a free software supporter.

She said learning about it is like waking up from the matrix, comparing Libreboot to neo's little red pill. (which means she also likes The Matrix)

Coolest aunt ever.

@RL_Dane

Fun fact: something actually decent happened in the USA today.

https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-politics-and-policy/michigan-bans-use-conversion-therapy-lgbtq-youth-rcna96521

i got a reply from Ariadne Conill @ariadne saying i should post the C&D. here it is.

it was pgp signed too, but also encrypted; i didn't know how to show the text unencrypted with the pgp signature intact pertaining to it, so here is a screenshot instead:

@indigoparadox Yeah, that surprised me too. I never intended for people to get that impression. Hopefully nobody will get confused, now that I renamed it.

I think the entire concept behind GNU Boot is fundamentally flawed, for reasons explained here:
https://libreboot.org/news/policy.html

However, I also saw that they needed help. Even if I disagree with something, sometimes it's fun to work on an interesting problem. Sort of like creating a monster. Help was given, and rejected. Oh well, it's their loss :)

I did this for fun:

https://gnuboot.vimuser.org/news/gnuboot20230717.html

https://gnuboot.vimuser.org/

And now I'll actually get back to working on Libreboot. GNU Boot is inferior, for reasons explained here: https://libreboot.org/news/policy.html - but they wanted to fork Libreboot. Here is GNU Boot:

https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/gnuboot/

They struggled for months to get devs. They use super old revisions of Libreboot. I decided to help them, for fun :)

This version that I made is based on Libreboot from *today*, intended for re-use by the GNU project.

The GNU Boot people actually sent me a cease and desist email, citing trademark infringement. Amazing.

Despite the original site clearly stating that it's unofficial. I literally made it to help them. You know, to help them use newer Libreboot because they use old Libreboot and even older coreboot.

Anyway, I complied with their polite request and have renamed the project to non-GeNUine Boot. The release archive is re-compiling.

https://notgnuboot.vimuser.org/news/nongenuineboot20230717.html

Personally, I like the new name better.

Ariadne Conill of Alpine Linux published this article today, which I agree with wholeheartedly:

https://ariadne.space/2021/11/16/the-problematic-gpl-or-later-clause/

I'm a fan of the GNU GPL, especially version 3. I actually think version 3 is the best version, for several reasons. The events of 2021 have made me worry about GPLv4 and what that might bring, if it ever comes about, so I'm interested in removing the "or later" clauses, whenever permissible to do so, in my own projects.

This is the absolute A in awesome. HP EliteBook 2560p and Folio 9470m support added to Libreboot:

https://libreboot.org/news/hp_elitebooks.html

@rikuv is doing god's work. He has been adding more machines to Libreboot. We are currently on a roll adding HP EliteBooks and other HP machines.

I myself have ordered about ~10 different HP boards, all the viable ones from coreboot (sandybride, ivybridge and haswell), and plan to add them next week.

I'm very happy with Riku's work. His patches are extremely high quality.

I've temporarily discounted the price of the Libreboot X230 by £20, on minifree.org:

https://minifree.org/product/libreboot-x230/

On audit of my stock, I have a very large surplus of these. I've found a lot more from my suppliers, for a really good price.

Libreboot replaces proprietary BIOS/UEFI firmware with libre code based on coreboot, offering faster boot speeds and better security features. I'm the founder of Libreboot, and lead dev; sales fund my work.

Debian Linux or other distro/BSD installed on request.

Libreboot 20230319 is compiling.

@dan openbsd has a tendency to heavily audit code, and remove useless additions, make it leaner over time

they do this without sacrificing quality or features. for example, openbsd ksh is about the same code size as busybox ash but is packed full of features - freebsd's sh is much smaller too

(i don't see the point in stripping openbsd ksh, i'm doing two profiles: small or full and for small i'll adapter freebsd sh for when i want sh)

openbsd ksh / busybox ash: ~18k sloc

freebsd sh: 12k sloc