How do I free my television?

  • LovableSidekick@lemmy.worldEnglish
    12·
    5 days ago

    I bet somebody’s done it. There are people in the Linux world who dedicate themselves to getting it to run on anything - a TV, a toaster…

    But it would probably be a lot easier to just run Linux on a Raspberry Pi or something and use the TV as a monitor.

  • ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml
    11·
    5 days ago

    Technically yes, you’d have to find an exploit for your TV that allows for installing your own OS.

    It’s not super feasible but it’s technically possible.

    • Teppichbrand@feddit.org
      423·
      5 days ago

      Oh no:
      It is theoretically possible to replace the operating system of an electric car with an open-source or custom alternative, similar to flashing a custom ROM on Android smartphones. However, in practice, this comes with significant challenges. Here’s an overview:

      Theoretical Feasibility

      1. Hardware Compatibility:

        • Electric vehicles rely on specific hardware components (e.g., control units, sensors, actuators) that are tightly integrated with the operating system.
        • A custom operating system would need to understand and control this hardware. However, the underlying hardware specifications (APIs, protocols) are often proprietary and not publicly available.

      2. Software Architecture:

        • Modern electric cars use highly complex software architectures that include real-time operating systems, safety-critical systems, and user-facing interfaces.
        • A replacement OS would need to handle safety-critical functions (like braking and steering) as well as infotainment features.

      3. Open-Source Efforts:

        • There are initiatives like Automotive Grade Linux (AGL), which aim to create open-source software for vehicles. However, these are typically designed for automakers and not readily available for end-user modification.

      Practical Challenges

      1. Safety Risks:

        • Operating safety-critical functions such as braking, propulsion, and battery management requires certified software.
        • Modifying the software introduces safety risks, which can have serious consequences, especially on public roads.

      2. Legal Barriers:

        • Many countries mandate that vehicles operate only with approved software to ensure compliance with safety and emissions regulations.
        • Modifying the vehicle’s software could result in the loss of roadworthiness certification.

      3. Technical Restrictions:

        • Manufacturers often use encryption and digital signatures to protect access to the vehicle’s software.
        • Replacing the operating system would require bypassing these security measures, which could be legally and technically problematic.

      4. Lack of Community Support:

        • Unlike smartphones or PCs, there is currently no large-scale community actively developing user-friendly open-source operating systems for electric vehicles.

      Examples from Practice

      • Some enthusiasts and hackers have managed to modify software on vehicles like Tesla cars to add custom features or access internal data. However, these projects remain experimental and risky.
      • Initiatives like Comma.ai focus on creating aftermarket autonomy systems, demonstrating the challenges of modifying or replacing existing systems.

      Conclusion

      Replacing the operating system of an electric car is theoretically possible but practically extremely difficult due to legal, technical, and safety-critical constraints. While it could be an exciting project for hobbyists and developers, any modifications would likely render the vehicle unfit for legal road use in most jurisdictions.

  • TrueStoryBob@lemmy.world
    15·
    6 days ago

    It is still possible to buy “dumb” TV’s. Tons of businesses need them for display purposes (like at fast food restaurants and corporate expos, etc, etc), but you need to search for commercial displays. Like this one.

  • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
    10·
    7 days ago

    It should be a thing because most (all?) “smart TVs” run some variety of Linux, which, as Free Software, is supposed to guarantee the device owner’s right to modify the software running on the thing. However, in most (all?) cases, the practical ability to do that has been destroyed by subverting encryption functions against the owner in a process called Tivoization.

    In other words:

    1. No, it isn’t really a thing,
    2. It’s wrong for it not to be a thing, and
    3. You should be pissed off about it.
    • SorteKanin@feddit.dk
      5·
      6 days ago

      The Free Software Foundation explicitly forbade tivoization in version 3 of the GNU General Public License. However, although version 3 has been adopted by many software projects, the authors of the Linux kernel have notably declined to move from version 2 to version 3.

      How come Linux doesn’t use GPL v3?

      • cecilkorik@lemmy.caEnglish
        5·
        7 days ago

        I mean, they did it with phones too. Android is just Linux. That was one of the main attractions, for me at least.

        At first, many people and groups supplied their own phone OSes. There was a whole thriving community ecosystem. Then they started to make it really hard, locking bootloaders and including critical pieces of hardware that didn’t or couldn’t have open source drivers (look up WinModems for a very early example of this technique, it remains really effective) or otherwise required extremely convoluted methods to access and the phone might function marginally without some of these fully functional, but at least you could still install a custom ROM on it if you were stubborn enough.

        But even that wouldn’t last. Nowadays they’ve made it literally impossible to defeat the security on most phones, in the name of keeping hackers and criminals out, but really a big part of their motivation is blocking these pirate OSes that let you actually control the hardware and software in your phone, doing criminally nefarious things like stopping them from downloading ads (the horror!) and preventing them from funneling all your data and activities back to Big Brother (how rude!) and worst of all updating it with modern functionality after they’ve declared it “obsolete”. The goal going forward is to sell you things that you don’t and can’t control, so they can shut them down or make them gradually more and more useless and make you buy new ones forever. They want you to have a subscription for everything including physical objects without realizing that you’ve been forced to subscribe to their regularly-scheduled-disposable-device-replacement-plan for no actual reason.

        They’re coming for computers too, or at least they’ll try. They want control of everything we interact with. For profit, mostly, but I wouldn’t rule out other motives. It’s a powerful thing when you have control of everything people see and do.

        • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          6 days ago

          I could be wrong (I haven’t really paid attention lately), but I think the state of Linux on “smart” TVs is considerably more dire than the state of Android phones. At least with the latter, projects like LineageOS and GrapheneOS are a thing, whereas I know of zero third-party community firmware projects for TVs.

          • cecilkorik@lemmy.caEnglish
            1·
            6 days ago

            Oh absolutely. Smart TVs are completely under the control of the technology and media companies with very little hope for freeing them, except that you can still plug a computer into them to bypass all the “smart” features and just use it as a dumb screen with a smart computer instead. But they always seem to put a few new stumbling blocks in the way of both those options every year. That loophole will eventually get closed, it won’t happen overnight, but they will keep eroding the functionalities and convenience of doing so until few if anyone wants to do that anymore.

            Cars are nearly a lost cause too, except where regulations say they must use some standard like OBD2 for “emissions reasons”, although that is obviously a limited scope and manufacturers try to find any ways they can to sabotage it or otherwise avoid it. Appliances and “smart homes”, all the way down to the light bulbs and LEDs, have plenty of proprietary, locked down, unrepairable technology in them too despite reliable open standards being available. The war for total control over our digital devices is in full swing and there’s no area of our lives from large to small that isn’t a battleground. People need to keep prioritizing the freedom of their devices because once they get these technologies and features entrenched it’s going to be very hard to work around them.

    • chingadera@lemmy.world
      1·
      6 days ago

      Woah woah woah, slow down partner, you’re not done yet.

      1. you should absolutely make as much headway on this project as you can, then share the results so we can all benefit.
    • rudyharrelson@lemmy.radio
      1·
      7 days ago

      It’s interesting to see some of the back-and-forth on this topic between different proponents of free software.

      I listened to this talk by Linus Torvalds a while back and it relates to the GPL license used by the Linux kernel and why the kernel hasn’t changed to GPLv3. Apparently Linus doesn’t find this practice by Tivo and other hardware manufacturers to be an issue.

      • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        7 days ago

        Yes, it’s a damn shame that Linus is weak on property rights.

        Because that’s what this actually is, by the way: violating the device owner’s property rights in order to prioritize the manufacturer’s temporary monopoly privilege over the software – which was only created for the sole and express purpose “to promote the progress of science and the useful arts” in the first place – above them.

          • oo1@lemmings.worldEnglish
            01·
            6 days ago

            I think he needs to work with HW manufacturers and chip designers/manufacturers to get drivers. They’re always going to have some proprietary HW and FW and communication protocols somewhere in their stuff. I think if he pisses them off too much he has to to bit-bash or reverse engineer all drivers for loads of stuff - which is never going to happen.

            • anomnom@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
              01·
              5 days ago

              Linux would need overwhelming market share in the consumer end to force chip makers to play, whether they like it or not.

              Windows might be finally doing a bad enough job again, to drive Linux adoption, but it’s hard to tell if that’s just Lemmy talking.

              • oo1@lemmings.worldEnglish
                1·
                5 days ago

                Linux doesnt “force” chip makers. It tries to collaborate , that’s the point of what Linus has been saying and doing for several years. I don’t know which market you’re talking about though, embedded - which is relevant here, or consumer PC. I don’t even think MS gives a shit about consumer PC, it’s worth next to nothing to anyone - maybe apple does.

  • potentiallynotfelix@lemmy.fishEnglish
    1·
    5 days ago

    There’s a whole lot of different smart TVs. If you want help, it would be useful to provide the brand of smart TVs as well as the operating system that it’s running.

  • DontMakeMoreBabies@lemm.ee
    3·
    6 days ago

    Nvidia shields with an alternate home screen have been a good solution for me? TV isn’t connected to the network directly, just to the shield.

    I’ve got RetroArch, Plex, Spotify on each of them - that sort of stuff.

  • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
    2·
    7 days ago

    It’s much easier to run a HTPC on something small like a Raspberry Pi, or an NVIDIA Shield. The hardware on your TV is probably the bare minimum to run its own smart features, and replacing the firmware doesn’t guarantee that the TV isn’t still phoning home with your data.

  • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    1·
    6 days ago

    What I did was bought a “commercial” television that’s intended to either be put in a waiting room and tuned to Fox News all day, OR used as digital signage. It’s not quite an Arby’s menu board because it’s still obviously a television, has a tuner and such, but it has no “smart” TV in it and the backlight isn’t as “won’t survive a run of Breath of the Wild” like the TCL televisions my parents own. Then I slapped a Raspberry Pi 4 on the back with OSMC on it. Meanwhile I did replace my small form factor desktop gaming rig, so I have a Ryzen 3600/GTX1080 rig sitting unplugged under that television waiting for me to build up the gumption to switch over to it.

      • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        2·
        5 days ago

        And also to be fair I’ve got a Samsung with a mostly failed backlight that I haven’t bothered to get rid of. I could probably sort of partially half ass fix it, but…

        • starman2112@sh.itjust.works
          1·
          4 days ago

          Over the years, I’ve tried three different times to fix the backlights on three different TVs. At this point, I understand that a failed backlight is a failed TV

  • henfredemars@infosec.pubEnglish
    1·
    7 days ago

    In principle, yes, and I believe a few small hobby projects have attempted to do this and support specific TVs. However, interest in developing a custom Smart TV platform tends to get siphoned away into a project where the output from your actual platform is displayed on the TV rather than running directly on it. Simply, it’s easier to develop and maintain support across different models.

    Why would you develop a custom TV OS that runs on one TV when you could develop it for any mini PC and immediately support all TVs? You’d have to develop your OS to run on each specific TV model which will make it quite hard to reach a critical mass sufficient to attract attention from developers and users alike.

    The juice isn’t really worth the squeeze. It’s not like TV vendors are publishing detailed hardware specs and drivers. Writing or even porting an OS is hard. Look at the state of the Android ROM scene, and that’s about as good as it gets when some vendors are actually attempting to open source their drivers. The difficulty is much higher and the interest lower due to the existence of a viable alternative.

    With that said, motivated minds have done it anyway. You just need to have the right TV for it.

  • pickleprattle@midwest.social
    0·
    6 days ago

    Why has no one mentioned Projectivy?

    It’s a regular app, doesn’t require root (though it benefits from it). It’s free unless you want complicated parental controls (I pay for it but otherwise have no relation to it).

    I have a Bravia TV, and with it I no longer have ads, I can change exactly what apps show up, including hiding Sony apps, and can totally customize the whole window.

    Finding it was a huge relief for me, as there’s no point setting up parental controls for a small child when ads showing horror products show up anyway.

    Hope that helps.

    • WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      2·
      6 days ago

      if it’s an app, it’s not n OS, and does not replace an OS.

      People want to replace the OS to get rid of forced data mining, forced updates, other limitations, and to be able to install other kinds of apps

      • pickleprattle@midwest.social
        1·
        6 days ago

        You aren’t wrong, that’s all true. But also there are a lot of reasons to want to “free your TV”. The literal answer is that rooting your TV is difficult or impossible depending on the brand, and the technically true answer is that you can at least get away from the horrible manipulative interface pushed on you by the manufacturer without doing anything difficult. Better than nothing, IMO.

    • spector@lemmy.ca
      1·
      5 days ago

      I’m pretty sure samygo killed the storage chip on my TV due to wear. I suspected it was going to be a problem seeing as the hack dumps log files indiscriminately.

      I’d be more upset if I actually used the smart TV stuff.