Cyberdeck Users Weekly

Everybody needs an operating system. But do we need a new kind of operating system?

Right now we basically have three major options: Windows, macOS, and Linux. Windows and macOS aren't open source, but that's not the only thing that's wrong with them. Linux is open source, but oftentimes that feels like its only advantage over the other two.

For years now I've dreamed of an alternative desktop OS with a fresh new foundation. Something we can build the future on with more speed and confidence because it got the fundamental abstractions correct. An operating system shouldn't feel bloated or fragile or like a monumental hack on top of 70s-era technology. It should be the minimal layer of software that can effectively and safely abstract hardware and allow multiple user programs to run together in harmony.

For the past five years, my guest Jeremy Soller has been actually building an alternative operating system: Redox OS. I think it might be our best hope.

This conversation is extremely technical. In a sense, this is the sort of technical stuff that most users never have to think about. But I find it interesting because someone has to care about these technical details or nothing would get done. I'm interested in the low-level details because I think getting those right can enable more capabilities and excellence at the user level.

If you absolutely hate operating system talk, you can fast forward to around the hour mark where we talk about the Linux computer company Jeremy works at: System76.

Redox OS

System76

Pop_OS

Rust

Window 3.1

Assembly language

Monolithic kernel

Unikernel

Microkernel

How drivers work

PS/2 port

LPC bus

L4 microkernel

Trying Redox in a virtual machine

QEMU

UBports

PinePhone

Librem 5

Thelio desktops

Lemur Pro laptop

KiCad

FreeCAD

coreboot

Follow @jeremy_soller on twitter

Follow @redox_os

Redox OS website

Donate to Redox OS

Redox Summer of Code

Meltdown and Spectre

oreboot

The computer is "a bicycle for our minds," as Steve Jobs once said.

Do you ever watch those velodrome events in the Olympics? They either have a rolling start, or they have to have someone holding them up for a standing start. The bikers look silly and helpless until they get moving. And then they go in a loop, round and round, very, very fast. If you turn a little too hard your wheels slide out from under you and you eat it. When bikers crash in the velodrome the road rash is horriffic and their paper-thin costumes are torn the shreds.

What if we thought of the computer as a "skateboard for the mind?" What would a "skateboard" computer be like? How do we get there?

“The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed." - William Gibson

I brought this up on the last episode, but I'm reading a book called "The Cuckoo's Egg," and it's making me very jealous of how much agency this guy has over his machines. In 1989!

I don't want to brag but I've been thinking about how we use computers, and how I'm disappointed by how we use computers, for a while. Here's a piece I wrote about the history of wearable computers in 2012, and how I was pretty sure Google Glass was the wrong direction.

Along the lines of affective computing, another piece I wrote even longer ago attempted to explain how much our computers are dropping on the floor when they interact with us.

My comparison was to a Dyson sphere. Here's the Wikipedia definition:

A Dyson sphere is a hypothetical megastructure that completely encompasses a star and captures a large percentage of its power output.

There are some really cool people in the computer industry who are challenging the assumptions of inherent complexity. Jonathan Blow, Casey Muratori, Raph Levien. Sometimes they might come across and curmudgeons on Twitter. But I think they're fighting the good fight.

There's also a really good talk about what's gone wrong in computing called called "The Mess We're In" by Joe Armstrong, RIP.

Finally, I recommend the On The Metal podcast for a dive into this from fairly technical perspective. There's a whole battle raging just to make it simpler and more secure to boot a computer. I know not everyone can dip into this particular battle usefully, but it's at least cool to know it's happening.

I love riding my bike. And I'm actually really bad at skateboarding. But I want to get better.

This week I'm joined by Matt Odell, the co-host of the Tales from the Crypt podcast. Not only is Matt Bitcoin-famous, he's also hugely informed on technology in general, especially when it comes to security and privacy. I'm grateful to have him as my first guest on Cyberdeck Users Weekly, and grateful to have someone as practically paranoid as Matt in the world pushing for better ways to use and own technology.

Here's what we talked about:

Tales from the Crypt

Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System

Bitcoin Core on Github

Dear Family, Dear Friends, A letter to all of you who still have no bitcoin

Ethereum Web 3.0

Namecoin

Dentacoin

PGP

GPGTools

Blockstream Satellite

"Nyms"

WebAuthn

Signal

Lightning Network

Juggernaut

Sphinx

FinalMessage

Mullvad VPN

Carl Dong's Mullvad top-up service

BTCPay Server

Wasabi

Samourai

JoinMarket

Coldcard

PinePhone

Librem 5

GrapheneOS

Open source image processing

Let Paul scam you out of BTC

myNode

"Bugatti of nodes"

Matt's YouTube guides

Matt Odell's website

bitcoin-intro

WELCOME TO THE POD

In this episode of Cyberdeck Users Weekly we'll review a bunch of tech giants and what their potential weaknesses are:

Amazon can't track counterfiets (scale fail) and it uses its vendors for market research (evil).

Solution Why can't I just order from local stores and self-run warehouses? Why can't I buy masks from the guy who stockpiled masks?

See also: https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/14/21065894/google-pointy-acquisition-in-store-products-stock-inventory-shopping

Google simultaneously knows too much about me and yet can't know enough to give me truly amazing and deep results (scale fail), and it attempts to control what I see (evil).

Solution Run searches locally before hitting the network. Most search just me trying to find that one CSS Tricks guide to Flexbox.

See also: https://minbrowser.org/

Seamless takes a gigantic cut. What are they reallllyy actually offering? So much less than even something like Uber.

Solution A protocol you can adhere to for listing things.

See also: https://twitter.com/susie_c/status/1255971900599046144

Like Seamless, Facebook starts out by letting you build an audience, and then at some point it pivots and starts to charge you for access to your own audience.

Solution Matrix? Mastadon? Jitsi?

See also: https://pauljmiller.com/posts/how-to-fix-the-internet.html

Alternatives to Apple: Pi / Pine / Librem / Redox OS / Oxide Computer / System76

I didn't bring this up on the pod but my dream for phones is that when you "retire" one you remove the battery and plug it into your home server setup and it becomes part of the borg that hosts all your local services.

BIG PROBLEMS WITH DECENTRALIZATION:

Identity (unsolved)

Payments (Bitcoin)

Decentralization of messaging (Lightning?)

Polish and ease of use

BIG systems like operating systems and UI frameworks are rare or bad and possibly unwanted in the first place?