this post was submitted on 10 Nov 2023
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Linux

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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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[–] pimeys@lemmy.nauk.io 230 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Nice! And they will probably differentiate from the competition by allowing GPL applications and sideloading, and having a total control for your privacy and no tracking, right?

Right?

[–] kittenzrulz123@lemmy.world 34 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah and maybe Bezos will finally allow his workers to have bathroom breaks

[–] Diplomjodler@feddit.de 15 points 1 year ago

Check out these great special offers in GPL applications and sideloading!

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[–] hperrin@lemmy.world 178 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Cool. Another OS to avoid.

[–] Cyberbatman@lemmings.world 37 points 1 year ago

This is the best description for everyone

[–] franklin@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Agreed. If it was any company at all except Amazon there would be hope but come on. We've all seen what they did to the fire sticks

[–] AbidanYre@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If it was any company at all except Amazon there would be hope

You won't be saying that in a couple months when Facebook makes their own announcement.

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[–] makingStuffForFun@lemmy.ml 99 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

They want to harvest the data, without Google's control, and give none to Google.

[–] Laser@feddit.de 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That can be easily done with AOSP, to my knowledge there's no Google stuff in there. Which is exactly what they're using right now

[–] mathemachristian@lemm.ee 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There still is some google stuff in there, like for example phoning google servers to check internet connectivity among other stuff.

[–] rentar42@kbin.social 23 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Yes, but those minor traces are easy enough to remove, especially if you don't care about being "ceritified" by Google (i.e. are not planning to run the Google services).

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[–] ElBarto@sh.itjust.works 72 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Hahahaha cool, Linux with ads and tracking and all the spyware you could ever want.

[–] thanksforallthefish@literature.cafe 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] gzrrt@kbin.social 16 points 1 year ago

Minus the sandboxing and security improvements, apparently

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[–] Dettweiler42@lemmyonline.com 69 points 1 year ago

I wonder if it's going to be as terrible as their Fire OS.

[–] DeathWearsANecktie@lemm.ee 66 points 1 year ago (7 children)

A third competitor for Android and iOS would be amazing. But not if it's Amazon..

[–] semperverus@lemmy.world 24 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

https://pine64.com/product-category/pinephone/

https://pine64.com/product-category/smartphones/pinephone-pro/

There is already something in the works (that you can technically buy right now if you wanted), and it actively respects your freedom. Granted, as with everything in this ecosystem, its a very slow burn, so it'll be a while before the software is actually good, but it's already made massive strides from where it started.

I would say wait a bit and take a look at this later, but i do have one friend daily driving one now to some success (this wasn't possible a year ago).

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[–] oxjox@lemmy.ml 21 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I just read an article about how they're increasing advertising on their Fire TVs. Rest assured, an Amazon OS is an Advertising OS.

Although, from what I've gathered of public opinion online, there's LOTS of people willing to forgo their privacy in exchange for free shit.

Edit: Oh...

They say they expect Vega to begin shipping on Fire TVs early next year.

And that article https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/11/after-luring-customers-with-low-prices-amazon-stuffs-fire-tvs-with-ads/

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[–] TrivialBetaState@sopuli.xyz 66 points 1 year ago (7 children)

The author is exited but I'm not. I am not a big fan of corporations taking the free work of FOSS developers and turning it into a proprietary dystopia.

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[–] CriticalMiss@lemmy.world 54 points 1 year ago

Windows Phone: Electric Boogaloo

[–] Atemu@lemmy.ml 52 points 1 year ago (1 children)

TL;DR Amazon is building a Linux distro that starts a chromium to run react native apps. Apparently, you need hundreds of people for that.

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[–] DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com 48 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Oh so I won’t be able to sideload streaming APKs onto any new Amazon devices? Guess you can fucking keep your shit hardware then

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[–] notannpc@lemmy.world 36 points 1 year ago

Amazon out here thinking “could you imagine how much cheap garbage we could try to sell people if we can harvest literally all of the data directly?”

[–] JokeDeity@lemm.ee 34 points 1 year ago (1 children)

LMFAO, can't wait to see Adbuntu.

[–] DarkDarkHouse@lemmy.sdf.org 11 points 1 year ago

But thats just a derivative of Debiad.

[–] Smokeydope@lemmy.world 34 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Amazon can't make TVs or ereades without filling them to the brim with ads and spyware like the greedy shits they are, I dont want to think about how screwed up their OS would be. As much as I sneer at Microsoft and windows BS as a snobby Linux user I get the impression amazon would be way worse and make Ol Gatey boy say 'have a little class, would you?'

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[–] Drito@sh.itjust.works 33 points 1 year ago (6 children)

These tentacular megacorporations are a problem. Amazon is OK as a merchant, MS as an OS developer, Google as a search engine... If they do vertical integration the market is corrupted.

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[–] brax@sh.itjust.works 28 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Lmao, they can have fun with that. I can't imagine it being anything decent. A mobile phone equivalent of a DVD Player OS lol

[–] HexesofVexes@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

"Equivalent of a DVD player OS" is now my go-to insult for a bad OS.

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[–] fury@lemmy.world 28 points 1 year ago (10 children)

Good luck getting all the developers to rewrite their apps. The only reason you had any apps was because it was based on Android so it was little to no effort to port. Going plain ol' embedded Linux is basically the death knell of your developer story. Source: been there, had no third party apps, switched to Android

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[–] Maoo@hexbear.net 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Surely this other monopoly will save us

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[–] NutWrench@lemmy.ml 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I already tried an Amazon Fire tablet, Amazon. No thanks. I returned it. I don't need a locked-down console that spies on me. Windows is well on its way to becoming that already.

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[–] mateomaui@reddthat.com 17 points 1 year ago

Absolutely hell no.

[–] guywithoutaname@lemm.ee 17 points 1 year ago

Probably because it is stupid simple to escape their ecosystem just by sideloading apps. They want to lock you down with their own OS.

[–] Kushia@lemmy.ml 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The only thing I care about in this is if they will contribute anything back to the open source ecosystem, be it code or anything else.

[–] wfh@lemm.ee 25 points 1 year ago

No chance. Amazon has a long history of using a ton of FOSS code on AWS and contributing fuck-all.

[–] cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 16 points 1 year ago (5 children)

if it's anything like amazon linux on ec2 i'll pass

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[–] NaoPb@eviltoast.org 15 points 1 year ago

Nice try Amazon. I'm not falling for it.

[–] xohshoo@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The mixed blessing of GPLv2

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[–] BitSound@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago (9 children)

I know it won't happen, but it'd be nice if Linux switched to GPLv3. That would at least help somewhat here

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[–] Valon_Blue@sh.itjust.works 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)

All I'm hearing is that we might be able to hack these devices and put full Linux on them.

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[–] uzay@infosec.pub 14 points 1 year ago (4 children)

So they want more control over what people are able to install

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[–] qyron@sopuli.xyz 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

What are the chances this will not produce wrong doing?

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[–] pan_troglodytes@programming.dev 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

hopefully they'll design some package manager incompatible with android at the most basic level - and then double down when it's proven to be a huge mistake. a good tick upwards for dev jobs, but the time for actual competition was over 10 years ago. this will fail miserably.

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