Il giorno domenica 29/12/2013 19:53:20 CET josh <j...@thefamousjoneses.com> ha scritto:
> Yes that's excellent, But I don't have the luxury of being able to > afford to change my previously functioning hardware every time I load a > new version of my distro. Excuse me, but I think there is something wrong here (else of my poor English). The story is: - there are some (too much...) hardware which *require* the system to load/run proprietary firmware/driver, otherwise they do not work properly or do not work at all... - there are some operating systems which load/run that proprietary firmware/driver, automatically by default or just asking users previously, or suggesting/requiring users to manually do this... these operating systems are, typically, proprietary OSs or "non-free" Gnu/Linux distros (which, unfortunately, are the majority... such is Ubuntu) - there are users which do not really take care of freedom and privacy: they buy/use any hardware, and install/use any sort of OSs (including non-free Gnu/Linux distros) and firmware/driver to have all the hardware functioning... - there are users which really take care of freedom and privacy: before to buy hardware, they check it not require proprietary firmware/driver to work and, if they discover to have "non-free" hardware in their systems, they try to do any effort in order to replace it... these are the *only* ways to be able to run a *libre* Linux kernel (with a fully free software GNU/Linux distro) on "working" hardware... So, maybe your "previously functioning hardware" still works well with a non-libre Linux kernel version; and probably maybe it works well also with the kernels of many proprietary operating systems... But, if you are really concerned with freedom and privacy, you should agree that any of proprietary firmware/driver required by certain hardware simply *CANNOT* be included in a fully free system environment. Just an example. A lot of network cards require proprietary firmware/driver which are provided in form of "binary" blobs by some Linux kernels: people cannot know what the binary code really does, neither which are all the data (and destinations) transmited by the card... Then the question is just this: Do I prefer freedom and privacy so I try to change the card, or I simply run a blobbed kernel with proprietary firmware/driver, without care of freedom and privacy? People who wants to run a *libre* kernel have just three possible options remaining: - check hardware in advance (great!) - replace "non-free" hardware (good) - use a "non-free" system (bad and dangerous) Regards -- al3xu5 / dotcommon Support free software! Join FSF: http://www.fsf.org/jf?referrer=7535 ______________________________________________________________________ Public GPG/PGP key block ID: 1024D/11C70137 Fingerprint: 60F1 B550 3A95 7901 F410 D484 82E7 5377 11C7 0137 Key download: http://bitfreedom.noblogs.org/files/2010/08/dotcommon.asc [ Please, DO NOT send my key to any keyserver! ]
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