Debian 6.0 To Feature a Completely Free Kernel 283
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."
Sweet (Score:4, Informative)
From Debian (Score:5, Informative)
The link to Debian's actual announcement: http://www.debian.org/News/2010/20101215 [debian.org]
Actual article (Score:4, Informative)
Here's the actual article [debian.org], 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.)
Re:Nvidia (Score:5, Informative)
Fantastic Accomplishment... but risky (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re:Which will essentially cause nothing more than. (Score:4, Informative)
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 [debian.org]
Only 14 packages are in the Debian firmware-nonfree repository
That's nothing
Re:Will kill the project (Score:5, Informative)
"In accordance with the Debian Social Contract, we acknowledge that some users require the use of works that do not conform to the DFSG and that those works might include non-free firmware bits. For the time being, we have added to the "non-free" area of our archives alternative installation images and additional packages for Debian Squeeze, that include non-free firmware bits needed to enable specific pieces of hardware. They are not part of Debian, they should be looked for explicitly by interested users, and we cannot support them to the same extent of Free firmware as we do not have access to the corresponding source code. We encourage hardware manufacturers to release only DFSG-free firmware and we cannot accept other kind of firmware as part of Debian."
The sky is, in fact, not falling...
Squeeze user here (Score:4, Informative)
Thanks to Alexandre Oliva of Linux-libre (Score:5, Informative)
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/ [unicamp.br]
http://www.fsfla.org/svnwiki/selibre/linux-libre/ [fsfla.org]
(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.)
Re:Completely free kernel? (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.archhurd.org/ [archhurd.org]
Oh wait... Nevermind...
Re:Which will essentially cause nothing more than. (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Completely free kernel? (Score:5, Informative)
http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/History [gnu.org]
"At this point, I concluded I would have to write a new
compiler from scratch. That new compiler is now known as GCC; none of the
Pastel compiler is used in it, but I managed to adapt and use the C front
end that I had written."