Slashdot Mirror
Debian 6.0 To Feature a Completely Free Kernel
dkd903 writes "The Debian Project has announced that the upcoming release — Debian 6.0 'Squeeze' — will have a completely free Linux kernel. This means that the Linux kernel which ships with Debian 6.0 will not have any non-free firmware. The Debian Project has been working on removing the non-free parts since the last two releases. With Squeeze, they are finally realizing that goal."
Is the release with the FreeBSD Kernel? Oh, wait. There are proprietary bits in there too.
I am free!
So they are switching to BSD, I take it?
More threads on the Internet of people going, 'I can't find ucide-34235.fw' and 'why doesn't my wireless card work?!'
So...those of us with Nvidia graphics cards are boned even harder now? Sweet...
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
So they're finally catching up with gNewSense. This is very cool. It's not for everyone but it's great to have it available.
Even more people who will just download the "non-free" stuff immediately upon installing. Extra steps FTW
Whoa! I can't express how excited I am about this, it's going to change the way I "experience" my computer. It will happen on a much more intimate level from now on, knowing that there are no proprietary firmware blobs inside.
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
The link to Debian's actual announcement: http://www.debian.org/News/2010/20101215
Dilbert RSS feed
Hah
If you want your market share to grow, spend more effort on improvements which actually make a practical difference to users and less effort on idealism.
Is this more of a "Free as in speech" rather than "Free as in beer" change?
(BitTorrent not having been invented when the lyrics were written)
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!
"Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it." -- Donald Knuth
Here's the actual article, as opposed to a link to what I presume is somebody's blog. Took me all of two seconds to find. In any case, as I expected, the "non-free" firmware will be available from the official non-free repository. The only thing we really need now is for someone to provide a minor-variant boot/install disc that includes the non-free network drivers, and everybody should be happy. (No, I'm not volunteering--my hardware works.)
Freetard Linux FTF!!!!
Remember all that FUD about not needing command line for basic installs of Linux? Well... Debian is bringing the command line back from the brink. LOLZZZZ!!!!onehundredeleven!!!
No, there are principles involved. This is important, and fuck you if you don't understand that. Code doesn't operate in a vacuum absent social effects, and it's important geeks realise that, and don't fall for the lie that technical correctness or just working at all is all that matters.
Isn't this just what Fedora has been for a long time? I mean shipped completely free for closed source drivers. No?
This is indeed a wonderful accomplishment and the Debian team deserves a lot of praise for what must have been a lot of hard work, however, I wonder if they're shooting themselves in the foot and removing hardware support. One of the things that drove me to Ubuntu over Debian on my laptop has been that Ubuntu is willing to package binary blobs for drivers. Nothing is quite as frustrating as getting a system installed only to find that some piece of hardware isn't detected right and is non-functional... particularly when it's something critical like network drivers.
I am very pleased that Debian has been able to get so far while maintaining such integrity to it's mission. I really respect that. But at the end of the day, I want a system that I can use.
The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity.
Actually, from what I've heard (yeah anecdotal, I know)
Non-free binary-blob firmware in the kernel is fast becoming a non-issue
With the success of Android and other non-x86 Linux based devices, having a closed CPU specific blob is not an option anymore if you want device makers to use your hardware
I think you'll find Debian is doing this now, because now most devices have open firmware code that can be compiled for different architectures
Just look at this
http://packages.debian.org/source/sid/firmware-nonfree
Only 14 packages are in the Debian firmware-nonfree repository
That's nothing
Unless they make it REAL easy to install non-free components this will just serve to marginalize the project and effect its future. Sure 'geeks' will get by just fine but if the 2nd tier user has to fight to get something to work, they will switch to somethign else in a heartbeat.
Which is a shame, as its the most 'UNIXy' Linux out there and one of the oldest.
Sometimes 'morals' will come back to bite you.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
This is comfortably a self solving issue.
You can only complain about your network problem if you can get on the network.
*grin*
liqbase
We understand very well. You are a social misfit, probably an autist. It is you that needs to understand something, that life is made of compromises, and the world has seven billion people, it is not just you. Compromise a bit, and stop putting ideology in front of everything else.
sudo apt-get install ubuntu
should fix any problems.
It's getting harder to run Debian, which is a shame. I am slowly but steadily converting my machines to Ubuntu just because I don't have time to mess about with drivers any more. (Typically 1 machine a year; when I need an app that won't run under 'stable' without munching in a half-GB of 'testing' libraries.
"More threads on the Internet of people going, 'I can't find ucide-34235.fw' and 'why doesn't my wireless card work?!'"
New users should be discouraged from trying to use plain Debian as their introductory system. Debian should be kept pure and advanced with pure Free and Open goals in mind, but noobs don't need that in most cases.
Different tools for different jobs.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
First thing I on a fresh system (and I install a lot of fresh systems due to testing that goes horribly wrong :)
Just put this in your sources.list and your fine.
deb http://mirrors.nl.kernel.org/debian/ squeeze main contrib non-free
deb-src http://mirrors.nl.kernel.org/debian/ squeeze main contrib non-free
deb http://security.debian.org/ squeeze/updates main contrib non-free
deb-src http://security.debian.org/ squeeze/updates main contrib non-free
deb http://deb.opera.com/opera-beta/ squeeze non-free
deb http://www.debian-multimedia.org/ squeeze main non-free
After that I down the catalyst drivers from ati.
And only then I start using the system. With all my closed-source goodies :D I love it!
Except one of those 14 packages is a meta-package with about 75 binary firmwares, including microcode for all Radeon cards for example.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Your Wrong. REAL LIFE Technology has a use to DO SOMETHING!. Technical correctness is a tool to save us from problems. However it is not the end all be all. In order to get things to work you may need to break the Purity rules to get it to work.
A kernel that is all Free just means there is less hardware supported. It doesn't mean things run better. It is really just a loose loose situation.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
there's free drivers that provide basic functionality with NVidia cards, and once you're booted and on the net, you can still go ahead and install the non-free drivers from Debian's non-free repo.
Are we talking only about NVIDIA video or also the networking functionality in NVIDIA chipsets (nForce, ION)?
The only people who really care about this sort of thing anymore are ideologues. Otherwise, this has little to no value to end users or their computing experience.
This is the result of a few years of work by Alexandre Oliva (FSFLA), who worked on the Linux-libre project and travelled to give presentations about the amount of non-free software in the default Linux kernel.
http://www.lsd.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/
http://www.fsfla.org/svnwiki/selibre/linux-libre/
(it's also generally thanks to the gNewSense guys, Paul O'Malley & Brian Brazil in Ireland, who worked on the general issue of non-free software in distros, but the specific work on the kernel was championed by Alexandre.)
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
Not really.
All of it is simply in the linux-firmware-nonfree package now.
Typing this on a Lenny Mac mini G4 with a backported kernel package and with the radeon happily loading its non-free firmware out of the similarly backported non-free firmware package. Ditto for my G4 Powerbook (TiBook), ditto for my spare laptop which is a HP NC4000 in need for a non-free wireless card driver, firmware (non-free) for the onboard radeon and so on.
The only missing bit last time I checked was however something which is quite important - the nvidia packages. By the way the NV drviver is absolutely not an answer here and not for performance reasons. NV does not have working power management. On half of the hardware currently shipping out there it is a sure way to fry your card. It may not be fried immediately. It may take months or even a year or two for it to die, but die it will and it will die prematurely. That has been actually been the case for 5+ years now.
So unless Debian wants to take the responsibility for something that can actually damage people PCs they will have to swallow the bitter pill and find a way to ship nvidia drivers (and have them properly configured powerwise which by the way no Linux distro does at present). It is not that difficult: http://foswiki.sigsegv.cx/bin/view/Net/LinuxNvidia
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
AMD opened up the firmware for all their graphics cards more than 2 years ago
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd_microcode&num=1
I'm not sure what those things are you've pointed out
Possibly old legacy firmware images that are being kept for some reason?
I think it's important to have a 100% free system that can never be litigated away or whatever (you know, sued into oblivion by a rich competitor like Microsoft or Apple). You're still free to add whatever non-free stuff you want while being confident in the knowledge that your distro will never go away.
Only this sort of insistence on purity is what gives us any FREE drivers at all. You might as well go use a closed OS.
Sure not everyone needs to go this way, but if none do no progress will ever be made.
I always use testing (stable's too dull and experimental too exciting), so I'm currently on squeeze.
Just bought a new Core i3 server system, Asus Mini-ATX mobo, built in video, built in gigE for house side, added an old PCI 10/100 Eth card for cable modem side, Intel SSD for /, 1TB SATA for /data, 4 GB RAM. Cheap as hell, like $250 for the whole thing.
No hardware issues at all so far, everything just seems to work. It's firewalling, media serving, web serving, and all the other bits you'd expect it to do. But it's running headless now so not exercising video or audio.
It reminds me of what Eric Redmond said in one of his books on Linux. He wrote a fairly insightful book called the Cathedral and the Bizzare that examined the differences between the open source community and proprietary closed systems. He had a lot of pros for the open source side, but his one major con, in his words was:
Linux is only free if your time has no value
This Debian solution will waste more of people's precious time. What is the value added from that???
OpenBSD has been blob free for a long time. actually, it was probably always blob free.
the increased pressure by major Linux distros that will force vendor to release all details of their firmware and allow completely free reimplementation will make it better for everyone.
but yeah, it's going to hurt in the short term, and a lot of people will use workarounds to install blobs to make sure they can actually use their computers/print/use their wireless card....
Good luck!
Think Win modems. Remember those? They didn't have their firmware permanently stored on the device. Rather, it was loaded onto the device from windows. It made them cheaper to produce.
Well, Linus allowed some similar binary firmware blobs into the kernel just for that purpose. They aren't drivers ( communication between hardware and the kernel), they're firmware ( software for the hardware to run itself).
All you have to do is enable the non-free repositories. They've removed it from the standard install.
It will essentially cause this though:
Me to be able to run a system free of binary blobs and sourceless turds in my kernel.
More ease of troubleshooting problems with system devices.
A kernel with less licensing and freedom issues.
Just disrupt the deflector shield with a tachyon burst.
...cheaper than the pills for your OCD.
Non-free, closed-source binary blobs running on the CPU in the kernel are bad, I fully agree. They can corrupt system memory in terrible, subtle ways, and without the source code it's nearly impossible to diagnose problems. Non-free, closed-source binary blobs running on an external device with completely separate microcontroller, RAM, etc? What's wrong with that?
The whole point of having firmware in an external device is to separate/wall-off the functionality of that device from the general-purpose CPU and memory. In fact I can't think of a single device in a modern computer system that doesn't have some sort of firmware. Not all devices have loadable firmware like the ones Debian is targeting, but who gives a crap if it's loadable or not? In fact I would rather that every device have loadable (or at least flashable) firmware so that I can upgrade it or get bugfixes from the vendor.
The usual argument against these firmwares goes something like, "IO devices have access to full system memory, and are thus unsafe unless we see their firmware." Well, any IO device has access to system memory whether or not it has firmware. A buggy piece of firmware-free hardware can just as easily scribble on anything in memory or generate a flood of interrupts or whatever as something with firmware. This requirement is tantamount to requiring all the RTL for every device attached to the computer, which is certainly not going to happen.
Stallman has heard the news, and had an orgasm.
"People don't want to learn linux" hasn't been a valid excuse since '03.
Firmware is the software that runs on the device (PCI card, USB device etc), not on the CPU. This is unrelated to binary blobs like the NVIDIA driver, which do run on the CPU.
Why should I care if the Linux kernel is free of non-free firmware? Does that have the added benefit of rending the hardware devices I use unusable? If so, well done Debian: you've successfully maintained the honourable badge of forcing your users to work as if it was 2000.
All the work for this release is f'n up everyone else's SID Branch--you know the one where most users with half a brain use and stable they never touch because that code is targeted for businesses and other low risk drones who don't have half a brain if something gets hosed.
Only on effing /. could someone exhibiting actual social awareness be accused of autism. You moron.
very sick and its lubricatiOn. You GAY NIIGERS FROM by simple fucking
They gave us the microcode, but not the source used to compile the microcode. It's basically a blob that runs on the GPU parsing command packets and executing them. So while they've documented the command packets, there's another level of code between it and the hardware. Exactly like how CPUs have microcode to execute x86/x86_64 commands, the only difference is that on GPUs they're loaded after the system is booted by the driver. It doesn't really make the GPU closed source any more than Intel or AMD are closed source CPUs, but if you want to get really formal about it you are distributing a non-free piece of software.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Sure not everyone needs to go this way, but if none do no progress will ever be made.
Except by the proprietary folk, who make most of the progress the free stuff steals anyway.
When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
There's NV and there is Nouveau, which is the community driver and from what I can tell, it's already much more advanced.
Power management has been lacking, but it's coming and they are already testing it: http://nouveau.freedesktop.org/wiki/PowerManagement
Dilbert RSS feed
Nope. Those people already jumped ship to *buntu. And rightly so, since this distro better fits their specific needs. Debian being completely free is A Good Thing for those who care what is running on their machines.
Rudolf Hess edited Mein Kampf. He was the very first grammar nazi.
I am so very tempted to use my last mod point to mod you down for saying "loose loose."
Not just Linux, they yanked it out of the kfreebsd kernel too, which is causing problems because you can't just install a firmware-kfreebsd package - yet. I think they were a bit premature pulling the trigger on the kfreebsd kernel. Check out: http://lists.debian.org/debian-bsd/2010/12/msg00046.html and http://bugs.debian.org//cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=594940
At a certain point, people are willing to accept that it's a soft vga BIOS. It's not like you have a compiler or the source code for your motherboard's BIOS either.
You're new here aren't you?
... where all the computers are free and none of them work quite right.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
You realize the host CPU (x86, ARM, POWER, etc - the one that gets all the press) isn't the only microprocessor in the system - many of these binary blobs run on other microprocessors and don't need to be recompiled for different host architectures. In a given system, there are usually several other processors that handle various, often real-time, functions. It is common for these devices to lack non-volatile storage and must boot from their host (the CPU) which is why these blobs are needed.
For example, your wireless adapter probably contains its own microprocessor whose firmware must be loaded by the host CPU during system initialization.
That isn't to say vendors aren't releasing the source for their kernel drivers that interfaces with these devices - they are, and generally have been for sometime. I think this has more to do with the magic doesn't usually happen in these drivers anyway as they only provide an interface to an external device. At the same time, releasing the kernel driver source code and providing free examples of using their devices is a good marketing tool - I'm more likely to go with a vendor who makes my life easy and lets me see how to implement their devices without getting the lawyers involved. Now, the firmware that runs on these devices is what is worth protecting, and, from my experience, is still largely closed and protected by NDAs.
I should also point out that many such devices are really just consumer friendly implementations produced by Company X of a product developed by Company Y. Company Y usually makes the firmware, and may or may not make the drivers, but it is up to Company X to package it all together and sell it to you, the consumer. Company X may want to GPL the drivers, but it is up to Company Y to GPL the firmware.
of course i might just burn the iso for a joke and watch it utterly fail to work,
What about "your" instead of "you're". He should be driving the grammar nazis absolutely bananas.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Small correction: His name is Eric Raymond, and he usually goes by Eric S. Raymond professionally.
The book can be found at isbn.nu or elsewhere, including from O'Reilly in case you're partial to them (since they don't show up in isbn.nu's list).
ESR's home page is a great resource unto itself.
I never understood why people care about loading magic bytes needed by an arbitrary hardware device to do what its suppsed to. I can almost understand open drivers..but firmware? really? Whats next expecting vendors to furnish you with schematics for their asics too?
What is the big deal? Who does it hurt? What freedoms are abridged?
Will Debian be providing open Intel and AMD microcode as well or will they just forget about it in persuit of an ideal that ends up causing real harm to the end user.
Honestly look around you...look at the dynamics playing out on the Internet and mobile devices between governments, media companies, apple, google and facebook... If you really want "free"dom go pick a battle that actually stands a chance at making a real difference.
A kernel with less licensing and freedom issues.
Stop anthropomorphizing the kernel or any software for that matter. They hate that.
Software is a thing. It has no rights or freedoms.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Just add non-free to your sources.list & download it.
nothing is stolen.. free ensures purchases come with no strings still attached.
..and the flipside is true too.. in any context, people like yourself help ensure the next tyrant's regime. while he rules, only the progress which benefits him is permitted, causing him to become an obstructionist troll to those on the outside. when this (inevitably) happens, he enlists the help of established authority to prop up his business..
so, yes, while life is made up of compromise, it is not an excuse to roll over and simply take what is given to you, because, inevitably, it was not made to serve you, it was made to serve the one who made it.
Sure, it's a noble goal, but how does a completely free kernel benefit users if at all? (or even worse).
That "freedom" is only noticeable in licensing and stuff, and unless the user is extremely self-conscious about copyright laws, it'll offer a diluted, incomplete experience. What means that user will bounce back to Win/Mac after trying linux and seeing how many devices don't work without binary drivers.
Seriously, they want to become more niche or satisfy users? I really can't tell.
There are plenty of other distros out there that don't aim for an all-free kernel.
Although, to be fair, debian does run on more hardware than pretty much any other OS, so if 'supporting lots of things' is important to you, Debian is still going to be at the forefront
Everybody Loves Eric Raymond.
Different tools for different jobs.
So what job then requires an OS that is "pure and advanced with pure Free and Open goals in mind" ?
Most jobs that I'm aware of require an OS that works; and the "works" part is not negotiable.
is to be free of users! Release 6.0 goes greatly toward that direction. ;)
Stallman would say that we still need the code to have the freedom to customise it and redistribute our changes.
Yes, RMS is a zealot, and no, I don't agree with all of his politics, but he makes some good points. This is one of them.
I'm willing to compromise for a working system, but if I don't have to (by buying hardware that uses completely open firmware) then that's even better.
are you intentionally cribbing from http://xkcd.com/743/ ??
Browsing with classic discussion, noscript, at -1 and nested
no hidden comments and I only mod UP
if new users use debian, they stand a better chance of actually learning something about operating systems and computers.
we *all* need open-source, what you call free and open
Browsing with classic discussion, noscript, at -1 and nested
no hidden comments and I only mod UP
1. Eric Raymond
2. The Cathedral and the Bazaar
3. I don't believe he said that.
4. It was never true. Linux is now as easy as windows to get things done with, easier for a lot of people. Not to mention that back in the days when it was damned hard work to get it working properly you were still learning about system internals and increasing your knowledge, therefore your skill set and marketability. Not to mention that my (huge, multinational) employer seems to think linux is fine for the desktop and the server room. And they have to pay for their employees' time.
The value added is that people will buy more FOSS friendly hardware if they wish to use debian, and that developers will turn their attention to any major gaps in support.
I've been running squeeze on multiple different architectures for months and haven't found anything it doesn't support yet.
In conclusion, you're a troll.
Or "different tools for different tools", as it were
> In conclusion, you're a troll.
Whom you nonetheless proceeded to feed, with four numbered points and an epilogue. Congratulations sir.
So what job then requires an OS that is "pure and advanced with pure Free and Open goals in mind" ?
'Making a derived OS' springs to mind. It'd be nice to be clear on licensing, redistribution rights etc.
I'm not sure if the binary firmware blobs in the kernel have any different redistribution restrictions, though...
Using pure Debian means you know how to make it work. The fact that the images are going to be configured one way shouldn't mean anything to a Debian admin.
This is the reason there are so many downstream projects; that there is the joke: "Ubuntu is short for 'can't install Debian.'" This isn't supposed to be mean, just an observation about the differences between the goals of each community. That being said, I bet most people could run a deb box with very little actual effort.
I'm typing this from a 10.04 desktop and doing a lazy Squeeze setup via Webmin (cheating) on an old P4 and grooving on some Pink Floyd. You can pretty much use Webmin (BSD style license) as a tutorial GUI to learn a new system or just when messing around with a beta like squeeze.
Remember, this is supposed to be fun:
System hostname debSQZ32Proto.xx.xxx.xxx
Operating system Debian Linux 6.0
Webmin version 1.530
Time on system Thu Dec 16 18:43:52 2010
Kernel and CPU Linux 2.6.32-5-686 on i686
Processor information Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.80GHz, 1 cores
System uptime 0 hours, 47 minutes
Running processes 88
CPU load averages 0.00 (1 min) 0.01 (5 mins) 0.00 (15 mins)
CPU usage 0% user, 0% kernel, 0% IO, 100% idle
Real memory 493.11 MB total, 68.45 MB used
Virtual memory 1.86 GB total, 0 bytes used
Local disk space 71.50 GB total, 4.85 GB used
Package updates All installed packages are up to date
This thing barely breaks a sweat as a multi-purpose LAN services platform/filter on a 7 user network - and was running for something like four years with only incidental reboots before I swapped it into the prototype queue for an update to Squeeze. Debian rocks like that.
Just remember to remove the tools you use for setup before putting the box out in the wild (and lock the Webmin process to local access/set root directory explicitly whenever it is installed on your boxes). Once you get standardized and oriented you can create much more efficient installation procedures using automated tools...
Anyhow, Canonical is doing a good job on the 'casual workstation' part of things - their effort might be seen as allowing Debian to continue refining the foundational mission.
On half of the hardware currently shipping out there it is a sure way to fry your card. It may not be fried immediately. It may take months or even a year or two for it to die, but die it will and it will die prematurely. That has been actually been the case for 5+ years now.
I didn't think NVidia needed Debian's help with that... ;)
Meh, I was bored and it was more fun writing that than doing any work.
There's an interesting article over at Distrowatch about the binary blob issue. The author poses, like you have suggested, the rhetorical question of whether it's better to have the kernel load non-free firmware (e.g. from hard disk) or have the chip load the same from its internal memory. So is it better (1) to have binary-only firmware that you might hack even if with difficulty by using, say, a hex editor, or (2) to have burnt-in firmware that nobody but a hardcore hardware hacker can modify?
Sigh. This is dumb. I can't use my broadcom 1GBASE-T chips, my FC cards or many SCSI cards. How exactly are people expected to install Debian on servers and workstations that have these things? Can't do it if the drivers don't work because the firmware was removed. Without ethernet I can't even download the missing firmware.. Which means the mainstay install media for Debian won't come from Debian. Crappy.
Perhaps not, but at least the motherboard manufacturer sprung for the 50 cent eeprom so I don't have to load the firmware into the motherboard every time I want to boot.
If someone really cared through, there are open source BIOS implementations out there.
It'd be nice to be clear on licensing, redistribution rights etc.
Proprietary blobs are always very clear on licensing and redistribution rights :-) That's probably the first thing they tell you when you install them.
I'm not sure if the binary firmware blobs in the kernel have any different redistribution restrictions, though
I very much doubt that any such blobs are explicitly licensed for use under Linux and not, say, NetBSD. Your incarnation of the free OS would use the same blob in basically the same way. Of course if your OS can't talk to this or that binary driver, it's just too bad - but it's not the license that forbids you something, it's your new and improved driver API that does you in.
With regard to the freedom to understand (as another poster mentions) there is very little to understand in that code unless you also have the schematic of the hardware, *and* the HDL code for all the ASICs that are involved. For example, the super-duper-secret piece of NVidia code can say this:
uint32_t *p = (uint32_t *) REG_ARRAY_A_AUX_CTRL_REG3;
*p = REG_ARRAY_A_AUX_CTRL_REG3_SETUP1_MASK;
What does that tell you? Nothing, unless you - like the NVidia firmware guy - have access to *all* the relevant documentation and on top of that have the phone number of the ASIC developer on a speed dial. Without such information you know just enough to be dangerous :-) You can change one bit and burn the hardware. A lot of the code is also written in a certain way, and it may be not obvious why. For example, you may "optimize" a piece of code and break everything because the original code was crafted to execute in so many clock cycles or to leave certain registers untouched. We may debate whether this is a good way of writing code or not, but that's how some firmware is written, especially if you can't afford timer interrupts (like when you generate a serial bitstream for a chip that is much faster than your CPU.) In those cases you need to have very good understanding of the hardware that you are driving, and have a datasheet handy.
In other words, there is very little to learn from those binary blobs. Life is too short to study some junk code written to run some junk hardware for which you don't have a shred of documentation. And if you really want to learn something, build your own hardware from OpenCores parts and write your own drivers. I think they have a complete set of blocks there to build a decent computer from scratch.
Imagine all the progress if Compaq hadn't "stolen" from IBM!
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
And having a distro that works only on hardware like that by default (but still has the ability to load blobs when necessary) makes it easier to find that it, since people will be talking about their experiences.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
..and the flipside is true too.. in any context, people like yourself help ensure the next tyrant's regime.
WTF
Post Interpretation Error: Missing closing parenthesis: post #34580154: line 4: opening parenthesis marked by "<<<Here" in the following: drivers any more. (<<<Here
Understanding terminated due to compilation error(s).
Who cares what job requires it? They do this because this is what they do. It suits their purposes. You have many alternatives that work. It's not necessary that every choice meet all of your criteria.
2011 will certainly be the year of Linux
As opposed to tight tight situation?
What exactly is it that makes firmware loaded from disk by the driver any worse than firmware loaded from a rom chip by the driver?
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
That one was supposedly a defect. Though frankly, in a hindsight, I would not be so sure about it.
Nvidia Quadro NVS290 temperature with NV or with no NVidia drivers loaded - >85C
Nvidia Quadro NVS290 temperature with Nvidia binary driver at what used to be default (top performance): >85C
Nvidia Quadro NVS290 temperature with Nvidia binary driver set to dynamic clock management - 65C
Sooner or later you pay for the 20C. I do not know the default windows settings nowdays, but I would not be surprised that the driver used to default to the higher performance ones in the older versions. In any case, that is a video card for which I would not consider running it with the open source driver until it develops at least some power management.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
So what job then requires an OS that is "pure and advanced with pure Free and Open goals in mind" ? Most jobs that I'm aware of require an OS that works; and the "works" part is not negotiable.
Closed-source programs work? That's news to me. You must be referring to a trial-and-error approach to finding out what, if anything, a program does. Doesn't it seem just a tad bit backwards? When I am not playing games, I opt for running programs anyone can read and (try to) understand. When people say that a proprietary program "works", I think: duh. I know who it works for, and it's not me.
You do if your board runs linuxbios, or whatever they're calling it now. People do care about that, just not most people. Catering to most people isn't the point.
I want my Cowboyneal
Firmware is code in Read-Only Memory; hence the "firm". Device drivers are Software.
I'm a Programmer. That's one level above Software Engineer and one level below Engineer.
We are talking here about proprietary firmware (and drivers) that make certain pieces of hardware nonfunctional. Any proprietary OS has no trouble with that; if Debian default removes those proprietary binaries then certain devices will not work. That's all :-)
Communication with the card/firmware is well-documented (OS driver), so once you push the firmware to the cards you then know how to talk to it and can write a driver for any system to talk to it.
Science & open-source build trust from peer review. Learn systems you can trust.
I agree with you but I could see a middle ground. It would be nice to offer a working clean/free OS that would be easy for folks to innovate on without worrying about licenses. Then it would *also* be nice to have a non-free, more highly functional version of same OS. Does anyone know if they are providing both? If so, this is a non-story.
It is really just a loose loose situation.
Not true. For those whose hardware is supported, it is a win. They get their Freedom and easier to debug kernel, while they lose nothing. Everybody (well, everybody who wants and knows what he's doing) needs to give a try to Linux-libre kernel because there is no reason whatsoever to have non-libre kernel installed if your hardware works fine with libre one. I had same attitude like you until I tried 100% free distro, but it turned out to work flawlessly on most of my computers. So I wondered why I didn't try earlier. I didn't because some dude like you (who probably never tried) told me that no new hardware will work and that only nut-cases use that. But it turned out that most of new stuff is supported. You don't know until you try. So stop with negativity and use what you like.
Microsoft's official position on standards: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/189826
It's not software that's free, it's you.
Microsoft's official position on standards: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/189826
It's not software that's free, it's you.
But what does that have to do with a software license or where drivers come from? What most people care about is whether it works or not and how well it works.
My personal freedom is not increased or limited by the source of drivers on linux. I don't even use linux. That is part of freedom. I have freedom to choose.
If people like RMS had their way, I would be living an GNU utopia where I would have GNU freedom instead of real freedom and I would have no freedom of choice either.
If using completely GPL'ed software makes you happy, good for you but don't expect everyone to do the same. Give everyone the right to choose what they want to use.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
AFAIK, Apple has NEVER used that BIOS code to boot their OS