Unsuccessful Trisquel installation due to hardware failure
I agreed to test ssh on Trisquel for someone. However, I never succeeded in installing Trisquel. I always got hard disk I/O error. Probably I could no longer use this computer for future critical missions.
I sometimes have a feeling that my current machine might be the last one where I will have been able to install Trisquel without too many hardware related hurdles. I might have reached my most advanced position in software freedom, so it can only go worse.
The only other option remaining might be to give up computing altogether, or at least networking. Would it be such a bad idea to retire from our current society, except for basic needs? My eyes are already complaining if I read books on a screen for too long. They never complain about printed versions. If I can still read books, what would I be losing, really? Going back to postal mail instead of clicking on a button would in fact be much cheaper, given the fixed costs of internet access.
In fact, that would be digital veganism for real. As a digital immigrant, I have no doubt I could take the reverse path and go back home.
You'd not "give up computing". If RMS "gave up computing" because there was no free/libre operating system, there would be no free/libre software today altogether.
Actually, RMS himself has made so many compromises already, because of the increasing anti-features planted in modern computers. If all new computers come with Microsoft's Restricted Boot, which is very likely to happen shortly, RMS and FSF would have to make other major compromises, such as accepting Restricted Boot as a fact (albeit unwillingly).
Please note that all petty bourgeois (like RMS) are powerless. They are doomed to be crushed by the capitalist/imperialist governments. The only hope of free software movement lies in reconstitution of Communist Parties, because free software movement itself is part of proletarian socialism revolution.
We need to create a respin with jxself's newer kernels installed by default and with the Guix package manager running by default. That way people will be able to get it up and running on a lot of newer hardware. The old kernel is a big roadblock.
Unfortunately, Trisquel does not have a good respin creation tool like you get with antiX and with Devuan. It's possible that Devuan's Refracta Snapshot respin tool would be portable to Trisquel - I'll have to try it. I've tried porting antiX's live Snapshot tool, and it says it works but then the ISO it creates is a big unworkable mess.
New kernel usually requires new software base. It's not always possible to update just the kernel on the basis of an old software base.
Debian 11 shall be released recently. By then, Trisquel 9 would become based on the "oldoldstable" branch of Debian. If Trisquel were released just a couple of months (not a couple of years) after the corresponding Ubuntu LTS version, it's not a big problem.
It's also evident that I am not the only person that complain about obsolescence.
Another major obstacle is the installer, which was born in the BIOS age, and therefore fails on many UEFI systems.
And it's very likely that Secure Boot would become compulsory in Losedows 11 age (as a requirement by Microsoft's policy). I'm not sure whether obtaining Microsoft's digital signature violates Trisquel's freedom guiding thoughts.
Update: It's seemingly easy to "replace the damaged part(s)". However, I must first know whether the "damaged part(s)" be the hard disk, the physical interface, or the south bridge on the motherboard.