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Debian 6.0 Kernel Will Be Free Of Closed Firmware

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  • #51
    Originally posted by bugmenot3 View Post
    Debian wants to be "The Universal Operating System" as indicated by the <title> element on http://www.debian.org/
    It's a completely different thing to support everything than to support everything out of the box. Debian still supports every device they supported before. You are also deliberately missing out on the statement of being free. They don't mean only 'without cost'.

    Originally posted by bugmenot3 View Post
    This will make RMS happy. It's the last bit thats missing in a complete free OS.
    Well, maybe not so. In Stallman's ideology, for an OS to be completely free, no proprietary software is allowed in any of the official repositories. He has spesifically pointed at Debian when talking about this issue. He's also gotten into a kind of fight with the OpenBSD devs over his point of view.

    He doesn't consider OpenBSD as open enough, even though they are probably the most into openness of all mainstream operating systems (define 'mainstream'?). OpenBSD doesn't even allow loading binary blobs into the kernel; something the Linux world doesn't have any ideological nor practical trouble with.

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    • #52
      Exactly what Ubuntu desktop tweaks are so massive and utterly impossible to do in any other distro that makes everybody here so thrilled?
      For a new guy, having a GUI that calls "apt-get install XXX" for you is understandable. But for someone on Linux for some time?

      Only useful thing so far for me is the Ubuntu font family and patching of cairolib whatever to enable smooth font rendering.

      Watch them come up with some crazy idea under the banner of user friendliness like getting rid of the terminal come next release...

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      • #53
        Originally posted by Mr James View Post
        Exactly what Ubuntu desktop tweaks are so massive and utterly impossible to do in any other distro that makes everybody here so thrilled?
        I think the Ubuntu logotype is trademarked, but otherwise there should be no real difference from Debian I guess; but I could be proved wrong of course.

        Originally posted by Mr James View Post
        For a new guy, having a GUI that calls "apt-get install XXX" for you is understandable. But for someone on Linux for some time?
        "apt-get install XXX" comes from Debian.

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        • #54
          Originally posted by sabriah View Post
          I think the Ubuntu logotype is trademarked, but otherwise there should be no real difference from Debian I guess; but I could be proved wrong of course.



          "apt-get install XXX" comes from Debian.
          1. The logo is the massive desktop tweak?
          2. apt-get is, the GUI "software center" is not.

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          • #55
            Debian is the base of many distros, it must be as pure as possible. Being totally free removes constrains for other distros that want to stay fully free (gNewSense and the like) and do not stop non-free distros (like Ubuntu) from adding proprietary blobs. You want an out-of-the-box experience ? just use Ubuntu or whatever distro claiming out-of-the-box experience.

            Debian is a rock-solid distribution with invaluable qualities like stability (you do not need to upgrade your nicely-running servers every 6 months), freedom (safer, more secure, more trustworthy) and just shines in critical production environments.

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            • #56
              A few differences between Debian and Ubuntu that stand out:

              Ubuntu.com has a simple download button. An inexperienced computer user has no hope of ever installing Debian.

              Ubuntu has an easy and very fast installer, launching from the livecd. Debian's is slower and asks more difficult questions.

              Ubuntu has an easy software installation program. Debian has the powertool Synaptic.

              Ubuntu has unobtrusive notifications and a tamed systray.

              Ubuntu looks awesome. Debian looks like 2005.

              Debian will contain no non-free software by default.

              Beyond that, Ubuntu makes Debian better, and Debian makes Ubuntu possible. If you think of Ubuntu and Debian as a single entity, where Ubuntu is the consumer edition of Debian, you can see the mutually beneficial relationship between the projects.

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              • #57
                CPUs. Don't those have microcode? I _think_ I remember a kernel configuration option that enables the user to load microcode to the CPU, provided you have it. If so...is the CPU microcode free in the Debian sense? If not, is Debian removing support for them? If not, why not?

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                • #58
                  Originally posted by Remco View Post
                  Luckily, you remove another source of bugs: the original ucode. So the net result is 0.
                  The effect of a bug in the ucode interacting with a bug in the driver would be quite a mess to debug, would you think?

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                  • #59
                    Originally posted by Remco View Post
                    A few differences between Debian and Ubuntu that stand out:

                    Ubuntu.com has a simple download button. An inexperienced computer user has no hope of ever installing Debian.

                    Ubuntu has an easy and very fast installer, launching from the livecd. Debian's is slower and asks more difficult questions.

                    Ubuntu has an easy software installation program. Debian has the powertool Synaptic.

                    Ubuntu has unobtrusive notifications and a tamed systray.

                    Ubuntu looks awesome. Debian looks like 2005.

                    Debian will contain no non-free software by default.

                    Beyond that, Ubuntu makes Debian better, and Debian makes Ubuntu possible. If you think of Ubuntu and Debian as a single entity, where Ubuntu is the consumer edition of Debian, you can see the mutually beneficial relationship between the projects.
                    All true. But most of those are related to installation, which inexperienced users do not do - those guys get somebody to do it for them or stick with what is preinstalled on thier pc until they become more powerful users.

                    Ah, forget it, your right. Though when it comes to quality, Debian can't be beat!

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                    • #60
                      Originally posted by yotambien View Post
                      CPUs. Don't those have microcode? I _think_ I remember a kernel configuration option that enables the user to load microcode to the CPU, provided you have it. If so...is the CPU microcode free in the Debian sense? If not, is Debian removing support for them? If not, why not?
                      Debian's microcode stuff is in contrib and non-free.

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