I am Seriously Considering Going Back to Desktop Computers

10-25-20

The future of personal computing looks rather bleak to me. The golden age of personal computing in the 1980's is long over. During the past ten years or so, I have been hearing about and seeing the effects of new approaches that governments and computer hardware and software vendors have been inventing to limit the power and utility of our computers. As far as I can see, the end is our subjugation within their ecosystems and our dependence on their cloud solutions. Whether their tools are UEFI, the elimination of useful software (as in the DMCA take-down of the Youtube Downloader website last week), the creation of new operating systems that move computing power out of our computers and into the cloud, "secure" hardware that we cannot modify, or some other approach does not matter. The point is that they are making it harder and harder for us to do what we want with our computers. They are successfully taking away our general-purpose computers and replacing them with little more than Internet appliances.

While an Internet appliance has its place, so does a general-purpose computer. General-purpose computers allow us to own our music and videos--not just watch them until Netflix's contract for our favorite Star Wars movie expires or Apple decides to somehow prevent us from accessing our favorite song in its inventory. A general-purpose computer also allows us to own applications that governments, computer hardware and software companies, and the music and movie industries would rather we did not have--software like Kodi, Handbrake, VLC player, Youtube Downloader, DVD rippers, and open source decentralized applications, just to name a few.

Much of what I do not like about the new computer hardware has been thrust upon us in the name of thinness. I can only surmise that laptop manufacturers' fixation with thinness is about profitability, because it certainly is not about usability. Thin laptops are thermally throttled due to insufficient airflow. They are also less repairable and upgradeable. Some are not upgradeable at all. In fact, it seems that a higher percentage of laptops are completely nonupgradeable every year. User-replaceable batteries are long gone.

Laptop manufacturers have also justified decreased usability in the name of security. I should call their solutions "security theater", because they seem to benefit Microsoft more than computer users. Many have said that UEFI is an overly-complicated system that provides a much larger attack surface than BIOS, and several security flaws in UEFI implementations have been found that seem to negate many of the supposed benefits. While I understand that firmware malware is a legitimate cause for concern, UEFI seems to me to have been more about locking Linux out of the laptop market to ensure that Microsoft Windows remained dominant. Now that Microsoft has lost that battle, can we go back to having the option of installing whatever operating systems we want? I doubt it.

I know that all hope is not lost. People find ways around oppressive practices. I also know that solutions can sometimes take decades to appear. Whole generations can be lost in the mean time. This is why the trend toward stripped-down, Big-Brother-controlled computers has me genuinely worried. I am not looking forward to a near-term future in which my operating system is so locked down that I cannot install the software I want. Many have already reached this future, perhaps without even having realized it. But, so far, I have successfully avoided it.

Perhaps my use of Linux will forestall the future to which others have already succumbed, but I cannot continue buying old laptops forever. I have been using laptops manufactured before 2012 partly to avoid UEFI and secure boot. I know that new "open" laptops are still available, but most of them--the System76's, the Purisms, etc.--are overpriced in my opinion. I also know that HP and Dell continue to be more Linux friendly. How long with that last? For years, I have put up with the drawbacks of laptops in exchange for their use wherever I wanted. Now, nine or more years out of date in computer technology, I am still using laptops with mostly USB 2.0 ports and internal SATA SSD's. That means dealing with very slow backups. I seem to be forever making backups. Eventually, laptops manufactured before 2012 will be too slow to do the things I need to do. When that time comes, I will have to transition to something else.

I am thinking "something else" may be a desktop computer that I build myself. Although I have not owned a desktop computer in seven years, I am seriously considering building one for the reasons outlined above. I also want a computer that I can tinker with again. I am hoping that building a desktop computer with my choice of motherboards will allow me to avoid Trusted Platform Module chips and UEFI in which secure boot cannot be disabled. The key word is "hoping", because I have not yet researched enough to determine if one can still find motherboards upon which to base computers that are more fully under the user's control. Overwriting UEFI with Coreboot may also be a solution, but it seems rather drastic.

What worries me as much as the end of general-purpose computing for the masses is that so few seem to understand that it is ending. Many are content to use "devices" that are merely stripped-down Internet appliances masquerading as reasonable substitutes for what they have replaced. Has the word "device" been substituted for the word "computer" in an effort to erase even the memory of what we are losing? Many do not understand, because they are too young to ever have used a true general-purpose computer. They have no experience with anything but locked-down platforms--just as 96% of the generation before them knew nothing but Microsoft operating systems. To call this a tragedy is not being overly dramatic.

--Tie