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Started playing Half Life 1. Never played any of the Half Life games before.

As for a recommendation, Chrono Trigger and the Silent Hill games (1-3, including the remake of 2).

I personally have a GNU bias as well (watching Stallman talk is what got me into free softwars to begin with), but the allowing of non-free software is in Libreboot and not canoeboot. Canoeboot was created as a direct response to GNU Boot, since GNU Boot is just a fork of Libreboot with all blobs removed, but it wasn’t being rebased often, if at all.

https://canoeboot.org/news/policy.html

but as for a laptop, that’s just the most free you can get right now (do correct me if I’m wrong)

I linked one at the end of my post. Not going to be cheap, though, since it’s Framework. It’s also not going to be very fast. I don’t think the board is free, but niether are any Thinkpads. There is freely licensed official documentation, though for their laptops, although I’m not sure about the third party RISC-V board: https://github.com/FrameworkComputer/Framework-Laptop-13

As for the point about security, in the cases where it comes to state run cracking groups or other high skilled crackers like what is mentioned in the linked article, it is not enough to just have as free of a system as possible, but also as secure and updated of a system as possible. You mentioned in your top level comment that people should use devices that run 100% free software as a direct response to this news article, but leaving any gaps open will allow for these crackers to infiltrate. The plain and simple version is that both are important.

Does the X200 even support VT-d to run something like Qubes with a Linux-libre kernel?

You also didn’t cover the point about embedded firmware blobs, like embedded microcode in every x86 CPU since the Pentium Pro, and not just microcode updates.

Also maybe separate your points into paragraphs for legibility.

https://canoeboot.org/ is developed by the same person who makes Libreboot, and is more updated than GNU Boot.

Although using something like this or GNU Boot will prevent you from obtaining microcode updates, which can leave you vulnerable to exploits. The CPU already has baked in microcode and updates are signed by the CPU designers (AMD and Intel in the case of x86 computers). Regardless of whether you update it or not, it is still proprietary code running on your computer. If you really don’t want any proprietary code running on your computer, just get a RISC-V board (although I’m not aware of any actual RISC-V silicon that is 100% free, but there are 100% free designs out there).

Stallman and GNU never placed much importance on free hardware designs, as normal people do not have the means or the machinary to manufacture something as complex as silicon or PCBs with small details, for instance, but that ignores FPGAs, PCB manufacturing plants, and small-quantity silicon production, which are all more modern progressions of technology.

The purpose of GNU and the FSF is not to prevent supply-chain attacks and to ensure security, but to empower users with the freedom to modify the software that runs on their computer. It just so happens that those idiologies align most of the time.

It is also a bit unrealistic to expect a society to just stop using smartphones, so we should be working on creating fully free smartphones, which are projects that some companies (Pine64, Liberux, Purism) are working on accomplishing. Even those phones still use ARM SoCs and proprietary modems. The proprietary modem problem especially is the biggest one, as getting something like a software defined radio certified by both cell carriers and the respective government organizations is a beast in itself. Every device needs a valid IMEI code to use a SIM card, after all. Also I believe SIM cards themselves can do processing, but don’t quote me on that.

Not to mention the fact that there are no WiFi chips that work without firmware blobs that operate on any standard newer than 802.11n. SDRs might be more feasible here, but government regulation would still be a problem. https://github.com/Nuand/bladeRF-wiphy/

If you’re looking for a RISC-V laptop, Framework has a board available based on the semi-popular JH7110 SoC used in the VisionFive 2: https://frame.work/products/deep-computing-risc-v-mainboard

And Apple, with people replacing traditional computers with Android and iOS devices.

It is theorized by anthropologists that for most of humanity’s existence (almost 200,000 years), humans operated on gift economies, without keeping any ledgers or IOUs, and also not bartering.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_economy

Humanity mostly beat out (kind of, not really, humans mated/bred with neanderthals) neanderthals as a species in evolution because humans cooperated with each other, whereas neanderthals were more individualistic (also not a universal truth).

Greed and profit seeking are a direct result of forming massive civilizations with defined leaders and the possibility to gain power over other people. There are ideas for new economic systems that will eliminate this hierarchal structure, namely anarchism and some other socialist idiologies like forcing all corporations to be worker-owned coops (not all of them).

Here’s a playlist that’s a good introduction to anarchism: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8V0LbSKRwxqBt2Odrl_Yp_SlEVrv-w9G

And here is an intro to a worker coop focused economic system and modern Marxism (the non-authoritarian type): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9Whccunka4

https://youtube.com/watch?v=LW6RWSiR88s

I’d like it better if they got a more permenant raise.

IIRC Revanced uses its own microG fork.

The original YouTube app that it’s pafching is obviously still proprietary, but all patches and the patcher are open source.

I started using PipePipe, which is a fork of NewPipe that allows for signing into a Google account to authenticate.

I create dummy Google accounts using an old Android phone, as that doesn’t require a phone number.

The vast majority of people stick with defaults, no matter how shitty they are.

Hopefully Valve will decide to release their Ibex soon. I do like that this is a split controller, but the ergonomics don’t look great compared to the leaked Ibex image.

November, you say? I wonder what happened in November that caused Netanyahu to be emboldened to the point of planning Iranian assassinations…

Popcorn is just a method of eating butter or other oil-based flavours.

Or use Flavacol instead of salt if you want movie theatre popcorn.

You can also use an immutable Linux distro (SteamOS being the most popular) and install software with flatpak, which is sandboxed using bubblewrap.

Short for devine

Linux on mobile, like pmOS, is great for tinkering, but I wouldn’t use it as a daily driver. The OG Pinephone also has quite weak hardware for the modern age. Pinephone Pro is a bit better, but still slow compared to even something like a OnePlus 6, which also supports Linux on mobile quite well, albeit, still with issues.

The Nazi says Nazi shit? I’m shocked

This is the same guy who had a Nazi symbol in one of his political ads made by some people hired directly from 4chan.

Just another example of enshittification from a publicly traded company. Nothing really new here.