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A little known fact: the "free/libre/open source" ATI/AMD drivers ("radeon" for example) are, in Debian parlance, more "contrib" (depends on non-free) than "free." The only completely FLOSS driver for the ATI/AMD cards is "vesa" (see "poor performance").

Have a look, for example, at what the Trisquel folks say about ATI/AMD here: https://trisquel.info/en/wiki/...

I think it would be *great* if this or something like it led to an actually free software driver. Most of my machines here have Radeons, and I am one of those nuts that values software freedom.

http://trisquel.info/en/taxono...

Trisquel re-syncs with Ubuntu, using scripts to remove all the proprietary parts. Read about it here: How Trisquel Is Made.

There probably isn't really any reason to use Hurd, since Linux-libre is completely free anyway. But who knows, maybe Trisquel will change in the future...

>What is it like?
Easy, beautiful and modern. And free.

>Zero proprietary drivers and media files?
Yea. Most proprietary media formats can be opened though.

>GNOME desktop?
By default, all other desktops available in the repositories.

>PITA to install?
Very easy to install. And quick.

>Curious
Try it, https://trisquel.info/

>Thanks
Welcome.

It's an Ubuntu based distro, but w/ what the FSF calls 'Libre-Linux' - Linux w/ all the binary blobs w/o source code removed. One can read more about it here

Actually, this is one of the ways that the FSF, having failed to deliver on HURD for all practical purposes, and having been rebuffed in their attempts to get Linux to go GPL3, are trying to get a Linux that is more Stallman and less Torvalds. Honestly, they should just do the HURD project more seriously, instead of trying to pass off other people's projects as their own, as they are trying here by rebranding their Linux kernel as 'Libre-Linux'. Of course, in userland, having moved all GNU software to GPL3, they've made Linux less usable for companies that don't want to touch GPL3 software due to the legal issues it invokes.

The other thing - if one looks @ the GNU page of endorsed distros, none of the mainstream distros - be it Debian, Red Hat, CentOS, Ubuntu, Slackware, Gentoo, et al are endorsed. Instead, one just sees a line-up of no-name distros that one's never heard of, and some not even offered in English at all - which are endorsed. Trisquel is the most well known of these. The others include gNewSense (RMS' own pet distro that he uses on his Lemote Yeedong), blag, dyne:bolic, Musix and a few others.

Anybody who feels like using these should instead get Arch HURD, which would probably be GPL3, and be more aligned w/ the FSF's campaign.

There are already two GNU recommended forks of Ubuntu, gNewSense and Trisquel.

The list of all the distros is in the GNU site: http://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.html

That will unfortunately not solve most of Ubuntu's problems. http://www.gnu.org/distros/common-distros.html#Ubuntu

Using Trisquel however does. https://trisquel.info/

Nothing in the sentence you quoted hints at "hate Linus so much". It's merely an assertion that Linus Torvalds didn't write all the pieces of the "whole operating system" popularly known as Linux. Here's your quote in context:

http://trisquel.info/en/i-notice-website-refers-trisquel-distribution-gnulinux-and-not-linux-why

A better citation for your "hate Linus so much" thesis would be the following passage. Reading between the lines, you can detect a whiff of prom-queen envy from the GNU folks about the prominence that had been given to the "contributions that come from Linus Torvalds' camp."

"For many years, the media and the user community itself has given undue weight to the contributions that come from Linus Torvalds' camp and fostered a skewed account of the operating system's history, while barely acknowledging the existence of the GNU project at all."

And, why do they hate Linus so much? From the Tresquel web page:

"Linus Torvalds did not write a whole operating system, he only wrote the last missing piece, a kernel"

Yeah, sure, completely gloss over the fact that the kernel is by far the most important piece.

The compiler is the most important piece. Without it you don't make kernels... I know, I've tried making one in machine code by entering hex. I gave up and wrote an assembler in machine code instead to develop the kernel with -- Linus just used the existing FLOSS compiler. Once you've got a compiler and Kernel running it doesn't do anything. You need at least a great shell program, some window managers if you're the GUI type, lots of command line tools, hell, even a file system before all that! The portion Linus contributed truly was a fraction of the work -- I've tried doing all of it myself from scratch (I have a crazy security related itch to scratch [separate stacks for data and instruction pointers] that means no C -- at first), and in doing so I gained a lot more respect for GNU and a lot less for Linus. That's when I started calling it GNU/Linux, and yes the GNU should come first.

Additionally, the kernel design of Linux is sort of dumb. It's the same insecure monolithic methodology that's applied in Windows. The fastest route, not the most secure, but hey, he was going for the fastest and easiest route. I don't discount what Linus did, but as someone who sometimes makes kernels for embedded systems, I can tell you that many people grossly overestimate the role a kernel plays. People make kernels all the time, it's not that hard to make them, just hard to be in the right place at the right time. Linus could have built his kernel on Windows, but I know from experience it wouldn't have attracted any users unless it had that awesome POSIX compliant GNU userland.

TL;DR: Why do think Linus deserves more love?

And, why do they hate Linus so much? From the Tresquel web page:

"Linus Torvalds did not write a whole operating system, he only wrote the last missing piece, a kernel"

Yeah, sure, completely gloss over the fact that the kernel is by far the most important piece.

The point was that if you don't trust them you should not use Ubuntu because they make it and thus have root access. I think that's a legitimate point to make.

The (sensible) objections to Shuttleworth's comments all hedge on the fact that he's muddling different aspects of privacy and control over a machine with "got r00t?". Yes, those installing Ubuntu connect to Canonical repos to update their system, and there's a whole chain of trust that goes back to Debian, linux kernel devs, et al.

However, the root user (or user in /etc/sudoers) is the one that initiates system upgrades. That user is asked for their permission and supplies a password to the system, before APT contacts Canonical's repos (or one of the many mirrors). Then, files are downloaded and installed, and the machine is configured accordingly. The root user is handing over control and privacy, but it's not of the same type that people are worried about here. The user is executing code on their system that has already gone through a "community audit", and it's a big community with a good track record, and no incentive to bork your system. There are many eyes on that code, so it's really difficult to do anything (outwardly) malicious.

The worry here is the same worry people have with Google's tight integration with Android. Except in this example, Canonical drinks ur milkshake or hands it off to Amazon (with the promise of other data-miners in the future). Having this functionality and monetary incentive tightly tied to the desktop of a major distro is a threat to freedom and privacy, although how big remains to be seen...I have a feeling it won't get too far because of community outrage, or Ubuntu will lose more ground to Mint, etc.

This is one of the many reasons to install Trisquel as a base system and then add repos as appropriate. You know they'll strip out any crap like this, if not stay away from Unity completely.

Intel has complete free software graphics drivers, they work very well, 3D and all bells and whistles.

Nvidia doesn't have free drivers at all but the driver has been reverse-engineered by the nouveau project and some cards work fairly well, with 3D.

AMD doesn't have free drivers either (the firmware is proprietary to be exact) and the support is fairly lousy. You get working 2D with some artifacts.

It's easy to test how well your hardware is supported by free software, just burn a live CD or live USB of e.g. Trisquel (a fully free distro) and give it a spin. Graphics (esp. 3D) and Wifi are the most problematic areas.

Trisquel is one of the best looking Gnome 2 based distros and it is FSF approved due to being a completely free-software distro including a libre kernel and removing non-free hardware from Ubuntu.

http://www.trisquel.info

Since we apparently couldn't be bothered with adding one more sentence to the blurb so we know what the hell 'Trisquel' actually is, it's apparently a linux distribution and Slaine seems to be the code name of the new release version (ie, Hammy, Sid, Hoary Hedgehog).

https://trisquel.info/en

I can think of at least two distros (gNewSense: http://www.gnewsense.org/ and Trisquel: http://trisquel.info/) that are the result of people working diligently to comb through the entire Ubuntu distro (not just the kernel) and checking modules/programs/packages for license compatibility. Binary blobs and other non-free kernel modules have always been a concern.

Bravo!

Not me, I run Trisquel.

http://trisquel.info/en