GNU Linux-Libre 5.12 Released After More Driver Deblobbing, Dedicated To A Cat

[phoronix]

Phoronix: GNU Linux-Libre 5.12 Released After More Driver Deblobbing, Dedicated To A Cat

Freshly re-based against yesterday's Linux 5.12 kernel, GNU Linux-Libre 5.12-gnu is now available as the latest version of this GNU cleansed kernel now carrying a codename of "Freedo Misses Tasha"...

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=GNU-Linux-Libre-5.12

[andyprough]

I'm using it today, I need to cut a lot of fat from an ISO to get under 700mb, and Linux-libre will save me a lot of space compared to the bloated Debian kernel.

Jason Self is a very good man, that was a bit of kindness to dedicate this kernel to his recently deceased feline companion.

[Britoid]

I feel sorry for the cat.

[ServerGarbage]

It still blows my mind that the "standard" linux kernel is shipped with so many black boxes and it blows it further that most of the people just see it normal or acceptable.

[PublicNuisance]

It still blows my mind that the "standard" linux kernel is shipped with so many black boxes and it blows it further that most of the people just see it normal or acceptable.

What grinds my gears is when people who claim to be "free software advocates" are the ones who don't care about this.

[alcalde]

It still blows my mind that the "standard" linux kernel is shipped with so many black boxes and it blows it further that most of the people just see it normal or acceptable.

It blows my mind that Richard Stallman started a cult that believes that crippling your software is somehow beneficial. I know he has problems, but how does that explain everyone else?

[alcalde]

What grinds my gears is when people who claim to be "free software advocates" are the ones who don't care about this.

There's nothing to care about. No one's sharing low-level driver code; it's not a spreadsheet. This is one step from Stallman not viewing web pages because the javascript being served to the browser isn't licensed under GNU.

I remember one of the "libre" distros having an argument on their message board a long time ago, upset that one of its advocates got the Linux Action Show to review their distro. Some of the core contributors opined that LAS would be more concerned about whether flash worked or they could play their audio/video files or their WiFi worked than whether it was "libre". They named other shows they wished the person had scored a review with instead because those hosts allowed them to "change the subject" and talk about the license rather than the capabilities of the distro.

To me, this post highlights how useless the FSF and their ilk has become, to the point where their only "contributions" to the world of open source nowadays are keeping Richard Stallman employed and removing features from software. I expected to find people laughing about them and weirdly there are people here praising the crippling of software and hence the adoption of desktop Linux. You're working against the adoption of free software with this crippling nonsense. Stallman is the living embodiment of "the perfect being the enemy of the good".

Oh, I forgot the final "contribution": they make a list of software that they believe needs an open source equivalent. That's it; they don't actually write any of this software or contribute any money to hire programmers to write said software; they just make a list. Ridiculous.

https://www.fsf.org/campaigns/priority-projects/

[andyprough]

Saving 60mb of space by going with the Linux-libre kernel today - about 1/5 the size of the kernel.

[coder]

To me, this post highlights how useless the FSF and their ilk has become,

To me, you anti-GPL types are just as extremist as the FSF.

GPL has a place in the world. It's not the right license for all or maybe even most software, but the unparalleled success of the Linux kernel and GNU tools stands as a testament to its potential.

[Alexmitter]

It still blows my mind that the "standard" linux kernel is shipped with so many black boxes and it blows it further that most of the people just see it normal or acceptable.

The Linux kernel itself does not come with such. It comes with code that helps load a binary blob firmware on a hardware device depending on the driver.
Lets say a GPU, those often contain multiple controllers/CPUs doing various things, usually very special realtime OS', those come in the GPU firmware files.

Linux-libre strips out the code that loads such firmware onto the hardware, thats all. Its of course a whole 'nother rabbit hole in regards to such hardware that requires firmware loaded from the main CPU onto it at boot, I personally do not see that as a conflict in terms of free software because that is hardware. Those hardware controller software can and should be free software, but then it would still have no business in the kernel and be still shipped as a binary file in the linux-firmware repo because such specialized hardware needs specific compilation enviroments.

The nearest thing to a blob Linux had in its code since I remember is that Intel iGPU workaround were Intel wrote out a binary in hexadecimal in a variable inside the drivers header file, it was removed and replaced by a different readable code solution on the ask of the linux-libre guys.

What Linux-libre does well is to show how much stuff works without loading binary firmware into the hardware at all, quite a lot actually.