GNU Linux-libre 5.1-gnu Released As The Kernel Continues To Be Deblobbed

Written by Michael Larabel in Linux Kernel on 6 May 2019 at 09:02 AM EDT. 16 Comments
LINUX KERNEL
Hot off the release of Linux 5.1 from last night, the Free Software Foundation Latin America team has released GNU Linux-libre 5.1-gnu as their sanitized kernel that strips out support for loading binary-only microcode/firmware files, the ability to load binary-only kernel modules, and related code they deem supporting "non-free" software.

With Linux 5.1 besides re-basing all their existing patches, there were a few more drivers that required adjustments. Alexandre Oliva mentioned in the release announcement, "Besides the usual assortment of firmware name updates, new drivers for mt7603 and goya required disabling of blob requests, wilc1000 had some files renamed which required adjusting the deblobbing logic, and a driver that we used to deblob (lantiq xrx200 firmware loader) was removed, so its cleaning up code is now gone."

This Free Software Foundation approved spin of the Linux kernel can be downloaded from FSFLA.org and is also found in the likes of gNewSense and other FSF-minded distributions.
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