Expensive "Free/Libre Software Laptop" Uses A NVIDIA GPU

[brosis]

Guys, I know that NVidia is even worse when it comes to open source support; in fact, I don't think AMD is very bad at that at all. What I meant was, I was under the impression that Nouveau didn't need proprietary firmware to run, and neither did Intel. People later contested that idea, so now I'm unsure.

The reason I believe AMD gets more flack than NVidia about open source is that we see NVidia as a lost cause, while AMD can be convinced.

You can?t compare that. You really can?t.
All three are proprietary companies, all three use proprietary hardware. The approach is different.

Nvidia?s Linux driver is a cut-down Windows driver and is primary geared towards workstation users.
This is a 100MiB blob right in your system, having access to root, having access to all buses. This is not different from running Windows with KDE or openbox port.
There is kernel module and there is userspace driver part - all proprietary.
"nvidia: module license 'NVIDIA' taints kernel."
Their direction is to not help nouveau - keep them low dogs, and recently - lockdown specific GPU features from nouveau by use of on GPU firmware checksuming.
This means, not only they refuse to see nouveau seriously, they have created a cage for it as a low-life citizen.


AMD catalyst/fglrx is blob as well, but only used by approximately 50% users.
This was not taken from Windows driver, but it seems now it is. Like Nvidia - it tries to support GPU as early as possible, and in the future it will have completely different role and integrity.

AMD radeon driver is written by AMD and outside of DP Audio, Crossfire and smooth primitives supports nearly everything.
It is a native Linux driver. They supported MESA a lot, they support their hardware, they work WITH users.
The firmware for radeon is loaded at start up and initializes GPU, as well as used to unlock some of the functionality for the driver.
It is few kilobytes heavy, it does not taint the kernel. Nvidia driver also loads firmware internally.

Intel - supported MESA by a lot, but did UEFI thing that gave a damn about Linux.Compare that to AMD - giving away information about chipsets and supporting coreboot - the real libre startup system.
It also loads firmware from UEFI at boot - how is it different from anyone above? The only difference is that no file needs to be loaded from initrafms, because its loaded earlier from UEFI.
Where is the difference from AMD/Radeon?

And nouveau? Not only they have much more harsh conditions than AMD or Intel, they also reverse-engineer nvidia driver to pick the firmware that they load themself anyway.
So the decision to use nvidia solution in this laptop is anything except "freedom".

[xeekei]

You can?t compare that. You really can?t.
All three are proprietary companies, all three use proprietary hardware. The approach is different.

Nvidia?s Linux driver is a cut-down Windows driver and is primary geared towards workstation users.
This is a 100MiB blob right in your system, having access to root, having access to all buses. This is not different from running Windows with KDE or openbox port.
There is kernel module and there is userspace driver part - all proprietary.
"nvidia: module license 'NVIDIA' taints kernel."
Their direction is to not help nouveau - keep them low dogs, and recently - lockdown specific GPU features from nouveau by use of on GPU firmware checksuming.
This means, not only they refuse to see nouveau seriously, they have created a cage for it as a low-life citizen.


AMD catalyst/fglrx is blob as well, but only used by approximately 50% users.
This was not taken from Windows driver, but it seems now it is. Like Nvidia - it tries to support GPU as early as possible, and in the future it will have completely different role and integrity.

AMD radeon driver is written by AMD and outside of DP Audio, Crossfire and smooth primitives supports nearly everything.
It is a native Linux driver. They supported MESA a lot, they support their hardware, they work WITH users.
The firmware for radeon is loaded at start up and initializes GPU, as well as used to unlock some of the functionality for the driver.
It is few kilobytes heavy, it does not taint the kernel. Nvidia driver also loads firmware internally.

Intel - supported MESA by a lot, but did UEFI thing that gave a damn about Linux.Compare that to AMD - giving away information about chipsets and supporting coreboot - the real libre startup system.
It also loads firmware from UEFI at boot - how is it different from anyone above? The only difference is that no file needs to be loaded from initrafms, because its loaded earlier from UEFI.
Where is the difference from AMD/Radeon?

And nouveau? Not only they have much more harsh conditions than AMD or Intel, they also reverse-engineer nvidia driver to pick the firmware that they load themself anyway.
So the decision to use nvidia solution in this laptop is anything except "freedom".

That was very educational, thank you!

However, I have seen talks where RMS has stated that he accepts Intel graphics but not AMD graphics. Do you know why?

[nanonyme]

That was very educational, thank you!

However, I have seen talks where RMS has stated that he accepts Intel graphics but not AMD graphics. Do you know why?

Afaik it's just about how the proprietary firmware is loaded. With Intel kernel does not need to load it so it does not make the kernel less free. I suspect RMS mainly trolls and tries to hurt the position of GNU/Linux with hypocritic statements and gradually push people to GNU/Hurd that would only work with a very specific set of hardware. No one's really ever said he was a realist

[dungeon]

However, I have seen talks where RMS has stated that he accepts Intel graphics but not AMD graphics. Do you know why?

Because of (su)real paradox , yeah it is only because firmware blobs for radeon are shiped software and not in ROM like intel's... well read this:

The latest Intel PC processors are useless in the Free World, because they require a proprietary program to initialize the memory and a signed proprietary blob in the northbridge chip.

I don't know how much better the current AMD processors are, but they are surely not worse.

Regarding graphics accelerators for PCs, ATI mostly cooperates with the free software movement, while nVidia is totally hostile. ATI has released free drivers.

However, the ATI drivers use nonfree microcode blobs, whereas most of nVidia's products (excepting the most recent ones) work ok with Nouveau, which is entirely free and has no blobs.

Thus, paradoxically, if you want to be free you need to get a not-very-recent nVidia accelerator.

I wish ATI would free this microcode, or put it in ROM, so that we could endorse its products and stop preferring the products of a company that is no friend of ours.

https://stallman.org/to-4chan.html

[curaga]

However, I have seen talks where RMS has stated that he accepts Intel graphics but not AMD graphics. Do you know why?

Could those be from years back, from the i945 times? I believe the firmware in those was burned in.

[xeekei]

Could those be from years back, from the i945 times? I believe the firmware in those was burned in.

Possibly. I am, however, very fine with the state of freedom that the open AMD drivers give me today. Although I do have a stance of "more source code is better".

[Adarion]

> https://stallman.org/to-4chan.html

OMG. He's still on that it's "GNU/Linux" ship. While I agree with a lot of his positions it's ridiculous to insist on this stupid GNU label. We call "it" "Linux". Even the ones who know that Linux is basically just the kernel of monolithic type once introduced by Linus. But you could exchange that kernel by a FreeBSD as Gentoo shows. Of course most userland also runs on any BSD or even other Unixes.
We call it Linux but mean the Kernel and all the userland.
But to be really correct we had to name it "free and proprietary userland software / Linux". Nobody would say that because it is too long. But it would include all sorts of not just GNU tools but all the X, the KDE, Libreoffice, inkscape, audacious, xbmc (Kodi?) and whatsnot. This is all non GNU software but still part of our systems. And there might be one or the other unfree part. I have some games for example that are not free as in freedom. I still have them, like them and play them occasionally.
So, next time, dear RMS it is "free and proprietary userland software / Linux" and in your case likely just "free userland software / Linux".

But maybe, just maybe he's actually living in a small enclosed world on his Longsoon machine, running a GNU shell and not much else.

[nanonyme]

> https://stallman.org/to-4chan.html

OMG. He's still on that it's "GNU/Linux" ship. While I agree with a lot of his positions it's ridiculous to insist on this stupid GNU label. We call "it" "Linux". Even the ones who know that Linux is basically just the kernel of monolithic type once introduced by Linus. But you could exchange that kernel by a FreeBSD as Gentoo shows. Of course most userland also runs on any BSD or even other Unixes.
We call it Linux but mean the Kernel and all the userland.
But to be really correct we had to name it "free and proprietary userland software / Linux". Nobody would say that because it is too long. But it would include all sorts of not just GNU tools but all the X, the KDE, Libreoffice, inkscape, audacious, xbmc (Kodi?) and whatsnot. This is all non GNU software but still part of our systems. And there might be one or the other unfree part. I have some games for example that are not free as in freedom. I still have them, like them and play them occasionally.
So, next time, dear RMS it is "free and proprietary userland software / Linux" and in your case likely just "free userland software / Linux".

But maybe, just maybe he's actually living in a small enclosed world on his Longsoon machine, running a GNU shell and not much else.

Wonder if Busybox/Linux counts as GNU. Probably not

[dungeon]

Wonder if Busybox/Linux counts as GNU. Probably not

Nope, no GPL in userspace, means non GNU Besides Linux, busybox is also GPLed software But you also need to avoid any GNU tools while making that, so no glibc, binutils, gcc, etc. That is it if you ask me, if you run/use/make it run mostly GPLed software you are basically GNU

It is doable - Andorid is one example

[dungeon]

It is doable - Andorid is one example

Ah nothing i forget they use GNU Compiler Collection to build kernel