GNU Linux-libre 4.12 Kernel Released, More Driver Deblobbing

[slalomsk8er]

Free software community do not have such resources and skills that Asus, Amd and Intel have. I do not want to replace fully working Asus bios with any coreboots or use Stallman made firmware in gpu drivers.

A student from Finland was clever than Stallman with Hurd, you remember.

I replaced the Lenovo BIOS from my x200s and now It boots a lot faster. So there are good reasons to do exactly that.

[kirgahn]

Digital racism at its finest.

They are giving the world a deblobbed kernel for those who care, not removing anything nor restricting anyone's freedom. No racism to be found here.

[eduperez]

My two cents:

I think that removing blobs is a good step in the right direction: we are not here to run proprietary software, be it an application, the OS, or the drivers; so, my initial reaction is to applaud this project. However, after reading some of the literature about this project, it seems to me that it could be giving a dangerous and false sense of security. Let me explain.

Yes, blobs can contain backdoors, but devices without blobs can also contain backdoors. Most (if not all) devices need a firmware to run; some devices get that firmware from the OS in the form of a blob, and some devices get that firmware from an EEPROM loaded at the factory. For example, you will not see any device driver uploading a blob to your keyboard, yet your keyboard does have a firmware, and that firmware could hide a keylogger, that you will never find out about. Your (blob-less) network card could be spying on your communications. Your hard disk contains contains a processor, too.

Removing one attack vector is always a good thing; but making people believe that you have removed all attack vectors is another thing.
So, yes, it is a nice project, thank you; but, no, we are not there yet.

[Davidovitch]

Free software community do not have such resources and skills that Asus, Amd and Intel have. I do not want to replace fully working Asus bios with any coreboots or use Stallman made firmware in gpu drivers.

I am not suggesting that volunteer developers should be creating free software drivers. The manufacturers should be doing this, it is their responsibility, and as customers we should demand such features. That is exactly why companies like Purism, Ratpor Engineering (from the failed TALOS crowd funding campaign) and others exists: there are people out there that would like to pay to have a complete libre software stack available for their machines.

edit: typos/spelling

[onicsis]

Stallman made firmware in gpu drivers.

Stallman GPU drivers==Vesa2D only, drivers. No Thanks. Really.
If they wanted to do something constructive, they should already have a disassembled/reverse engineered version of those blobs. And offering just a chopped variant of kernel with crippled functionality is not a viable option for most of users.

[onicsis]

A good alternative to proprietary hardware and also blob free
could be https://www.raptorengineering.com/TA...ease_specs.php
Talos™ Secure Workstation

• Open-toolchain FPGAs
• Blob-free operation

• Fully libre (open-source) IBM OPAL primary firmware w/ PetitBoot interface
• Fully libre (open-source) OpenBMC secondary (IPMI / OoBM) firmware

• NO signing keys preventing firmware modification

Is complete open source, but unfortunately is way to expensive for average user, costing thousands of dollars.

[blackiwid]

It's statements like this that make the FSF sound like a cult to me :P

Nobody forces you to defend/protect your freedom. So walk away as much as you want, be my guest!

[ZeroPointEnergy]

It always surprises me that after Snowden and all those leaks from NSA, CIA etc, there are still some morons who think that proprietary hard and software is a non-issue. But they probably deserve that stuff, so it's all fine.

[andyprough]

I've used Linux-libre for two years on a Dell laptop, with Parabola - a free-software Arch derivative. Works great, very quick. Only hardware that didn't work was WiFi, so I bought a $10 usb WiFi dongle on amazon that works with the free drivers.

It's very cool to run a fast, modern system with no non-free software. You can run Debian this way also, or Slackware. And there's an Ubuntu derivative that uses it called Trisquel. Popular for systems that don't need fancy graphics, as you get complete control over the software.

[blackiwid]

And I used linux-libre kernel in fedora, its in official fedora as far as I remember on my Thinkpad X220 it worked just fine, too.