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Mike Hollis | 18 May 2012 17:51
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libre kernel

 I just subcribed to this list and as yet have recieved no mailings to 
reply to, but this is relevent to the earlier posts about the gnu 
gnu-linux discussion. As the one poster said this will probably never
be resolved and I don't wish to open that can of worms.
 The discussion did get me curious and I checked the gnu web page as I
hadn't looked at it in some time and it pretty surprising to look at the
listed "free distributions". None of what I considered to be the major
players in early linux development were listed for various reasons. They
also offered scripts to remove the "blobs" from the vanilla linux 
kernel.
 I took a quick look at one of the "de-blob" scripts and was surprised 
at how extensive it was. My question is to anyone that has experience or
expertise in this area: Would these kernels lose considerable 
functionality compared to a regular kernel ?

Thanks,

#### Mike Hollis ####

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Serge Hooge | 18 May 2012 18:45
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Re: libre kernel

> Would these kernels lose considerable functionality compared to a
> regular kernel ?

The blobs are mostly drivers for a few specifically freedom-denying
pieces of hardware, unless you need those, then no. I'm using a libre
kernel on my primary machine (which runs Parabola) and a few of my
other machines and I don't have much trouble.

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Mike Hollis | 18 May 2012 22:00
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Re: libre kernel

On Fri, May 18, 2012 at 07:48:45PM +0000, Mike Hollis wrote:
> On Fri, May 18, 2012 at 10:45:35PM +0600, Serge Hooge wrote:
> > > Would these kernels lose considerable functionality compared to a
> > > regular kernel ?
> > 
> > The blobs are mostly drivers for a few specifically freedom-denying
> > pieces of hardware, unless you need those, then no. I'm using a libre
> > kernel on my primary machine (which runs Parabola) and a few of my
> > other machines and I don't have much trouble.
> > 
> > -- 
> > Serge Hooge
> > 
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 Thanks for the reply; I may look into it when I compile the kernel 
 again but it would be pointless unless I ditch the Nvidia proprietary
 driver which already taints my kernel. Right now with the state of
 my hardware and software,(old and dated) I probably wouldn't miss it
 as I use text mode browsers most of the time and my machine is too
 slow for gaming.
  The contributions of FSF and GNU to the advancement of "alternative"
 software and os's can't be overstated. Indeed I was exposed to gnu 
 software many years before I heard the term Linux. I had a friend who
 had an XT ( I had a tandy with 64k) and lots of games on floppy and
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Andrew Benton | 19 May 2012 00:16
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Re: libre kernel

On Fri, 18 May 2012 16:59:09 +0100
Mike Hollis <holliskm <at> gmail.com> wrote:

>  I just subcribed to this list and as yet have recieved no mailings to 
> reply to, but this is relevent to the earlier posts about the gnu 
> gnu-linux discussion. As the one poster said this will probably never
> be resolved and I don't wish to open that can of worms.
>  The discussion did get me curious and I checked the gnu web page as I
> hadn't looked at it in some time and it pretty surprising to look at the
> listed "free distributions". None of what I considered to be the major
> players in early linux development were listed for various reasons. They
> also offered scripts to remove the "blobs" from the vanilla linux 
> kernel.
>  I took a quick look at one of the "de-blob" scripts and was surprised 
> at how extensive it was. My question is to anyone that has experience or
> expertise in this area: Would these kernels lose considerable 
> functionality compared to a regular kernel ?

I've never tried but I'm certain I couldn't use my current graphics
card without binary blob firmware. I do prefer to buy hardware that
doesn't need firmware but usually you don't know what it needs until
you unbox it and plug it in and see what lspci says about it. I'm
pretty sure I could put together a computer that would run without any
binary blobs but I'm also reasonably sure it would consist of really
old parts that I probably wouldn't be using otherwise :/
So it's a compromise. It's good to have principles and free (as in
open) software is a good thing but it's also nice to have a computer
that performs well.

Andy
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Serge Hooge | 19 May 2012 07:49
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Re: libre kernel

> I've never tried but I'm certain I couldn't use my current graphics
> card without binary blob firmware. 
Which graphics card do you have? NVidia cards have nouveau (or nv),
which is good enough today to handle heavy 3D. ATI and Intel both have
libre drivers, AFAIK.

>I'm also
>reasonably sure it would consist of really old parts that I probably
>wouldn't be using otherwise :/
http://www.h-node.org holds a hardware database which holds a list of
hardware pieces fully and freely supported, and many are not at all
old. 

> So it's a compromise. It's good to have principles and free (as in
> open) software is a good thing but it's also nice to have a computer
> that performs well.
Again, it's entirely possible to build a completely free machine (up to
the level of BIOS) and have a good performance. So not really. Blobs
can be avoided and it's mostly a matter of your understanding and
devotion to free software.

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Mike Hollis | 19 May 2012 10:32
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Re: libre kernel

On Sat, May 19, 2012 at 11:49:20AM +0600, Serge Hooge wrote:
> > I've never tried but I'm certain I couldn't use my current graphics
> > card without binary blob firmware. 
> Which graphics card do you have? NVidia cards have nouveau (or nv),
> which is good enough today to handle heavy 3D. ATI and Intel both have
> libre drivers, AFAIK.
 snip 
 unsnip
> 
> -- 
> Serge Hooge
> 
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 My card is a GeForce2 MX200 . My newest computer was was zapped by
lightning last summer and In the process of trying  to salvage my files
I made a mistake and deleted about 150 gig of data that I had saved for
years including my LFS and BLFS sources. Right now I only have dial-up
and the lfs-sources off the live cd running on an old Toshiba server , 
but it's better than nothing. I won't be doing much major downloading
and os building due to the limited bandwith till I can afford newer
hardware and broadband again. 
 I don't remember the version of Xorg I was using before disaster struck 
but the Nvidia proprietary driver was superior to anything else I tried.
The nv driver from Xorg wouldn't run the GLX programs properly.
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Serge Hooge | 19 May 2012 11:34
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Re: libre kernel

> I don't remember the version of Xorg I was using before disaster
> struck but the Nvidia proprietary driver was superior to anything
> else I tried. The nv driver from Xorg wouldn't run the GLX programs
> properly.

Yes, the proprietary NVidia drivers can handle much more than free
alternatives, but nouveau can launch things like Nexuiz easily
nowadays. nv is outdated, but is usable for
basic 2D video.

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holliskm | 22 May 2012 03:28
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Re: libre kernel

On Sat, May 19, 2012 at 03:34:56PM +0600, Serge Hooge wrote:
> > I don't remember the version of Xorg I was using before disaster
> > struck but the Nvidia proprietary driver was superior to anything
> > else I tried. The nv driver from Xorg wouldn't run the GLX programs
> > properly.
> 
> Yes, the proprietary NVidia drivers can handle much more than free
> alternatives, but nouveau can launch things like Nexuiz easily
> nowadays. nv is outdated, but is usable for
> basic 2D video.
> 
> -- 
> Serge Hooge
> 
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 I downloaded deblob-2.6.34 and  deblob-check from GNU and tried them on 
a new partion with a fresh back-up os, a freshly unpacked kernel and the 
script hung with  an error about gawk. I went to sleep  with it running
and woke up with it running. Top showed gawk still using 97% of the
processor. Lucky thing my fan was working well.
 My verion of gawk is probably too old and I might even RTFM or read the
README. I'm sure to try again because I have plenty of disk space and 
time; It's money that is short supply. But I'll warn you I'll probably 
never give up the freedom that LFS gives one to go back to a dist-
ribution. Like Andrew I want my system too work well, and if I have too
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Serge Hooge | 22 May 2012 11:33
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Re: libre kernel

> You seem to be quite knowledable about the Gnu os. What is Gnu's
> or the FSF's position on the bios and bios flashes ? Certainly that
> is firmware. If I hadn't flashed the bios on this machine I would
> have a 320 gig paperweight. 

The FSF's main goal is universal software freedom, so, surely, that
includes firmware too. I highly recommend reading or viewing Richard
Stallman's essays/lectures or paying a visit to the Education portal on
gnu.org if you want to learn more.

There's a /very/ WIP, but promising free BIOS, called coreboot
(http://www.coreboot.org/Welcome_to_coreboot), which is quite good,
but at this moment supports only a small number of motherboards (230). 
It is on GNU's high priority projects list at the moment.

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Gmane