Re: [Trisquel-users] FSF Certifies Atheros-Based ThinkPenguin 802.11 N USB Adapter
It's supported in Ubuntu 12.04 which is the release Toutatis is derived from. Seems reasonable to assume the page should say Trisquel 6.0. 'Big Up' to Chris and s/his team for going for RYF. I'm very happy to see that they've contained the certification cost within what would be UK quality equipment price.
[Trisquel-users] Antwort: TiVo solution
Fab, thanks for answering ! I know about the firmware-free device Chris will offer. The bad point here ist that it was limited to DVB-T for Europe IIRC..and at least for Germany this means that people outside big cities will not be able to use it. I mean..even in big cities you sometimes require an active antenna below your roof to get a solid receiption (which I use for my TV). I stick to my opinion: Even if most blobs / firmware files are not free per definition of the FSF, a GNU Linux box running for example with a DVB-S2 USB device which requires firmware does "respect my freedom" much more than any closed box such as the name DVB-S receiver does. Especially since, while I have not(!) control about the firmware file, I have full control about the remaining 95% of the system :) I do not endorse / promote this solution and since it is a philosophical problem, I will end here. Most likely the best / honest answer to Pascal should have been that currently there is no free option for recording TV. At least not unless you get on hold of a device which runs without firmware files. I am quite a while with GNU Linux and own / have owned a lot of "TV devices". I can not remember one of them running without firmware. My French is a bit rusty but as I could read Freevo relies on MythTV for recording and GeeXboX looks more like an XBMC-variant to me without recording capabilities. Regards, Holger
[Trisquel-users] Antwort: TiVo solution
Fab, so in term of suggesting / promoting non-free devices you Silicon Dust devices are not "better" than using a TV adapter which relies on a firmware blob. Not to sound offensive but such a list is useless since most likely 90 to 95% of the consumer devices available rely on firmware files. Devices without relying on blobs are like the needle in the haystack ;) ...but I guess that is something which Chris could tell us more on his search for a blob-free device. Cheers, H.
Re: [Trisquel-users] Should Trisquel add a firewall by default
I personally think a far superior solution would be to remove such servers. Most of your 'average users' will never use them. And for power users their install should not prove an insurmountable challenge.
Re: [Trisquel-users] Multiple desktop's
I guess the multiple workspaces is a feature of the window manager. The Workspace Switcher applet probably is well integrated with Metacity, but not with Compiz. I remember Compiz has its own multiple workspace configuration, separate from the configuration set from the Workspace Switcher.
[Trisquel-users] Fear and Loathing in Free Hardware build quality
I'll give you the tl;dr first. 1) I'm very happy with the available software choices within Free Software, including Trisquel. 2) Hardware, under the hood, pretty much the same. But: 3) Form factors and external build quality are still almost deal-breakingly bad out there. Now the (very) long version. 1996-2004: Eight years almost exclusively a Windows user. 2004-2012 Eight years almost exclusively a Mac user. Xmas 2012, I'm well fed up with both mega-corps and very motivated to replace my six-year-old G4 Powerbook laptop with a high-quality, free hardware machine that's multi-distro capable out of the box. I distro-hop via USB stick. I find operating systems I like just as well as OSX Tiger--better, on some points (KDE and XFCE let you customize especially well), a little worse on others (no drop-in replacement for Little Snitch and a couple other apps). I read a lot, most importantly on this forum, and it seems I can pay $600 for a stock retail laptop, and maybe figure out which ones will mostly work with most distros ... or, I can drop $1200 and get one that specs out a little better, and more importantly comes with a reasonable expectation of working with any free operating system. I decide to pay the big bucks. Maybe not the smart choice, but worth it to me. If I pay too much, I'll consider the overpayment a donation to the Good Fight. I settle on a TP Royal Penguin, top of the line, maxed out. I add a printer, and a second pre-installed distro, and $1400 goes off to New Jersey. It arrives quickly, it works great, and it's beautiful. Doesn't seem too fragile. But ... it has one horrifying flaw. The ultra-thin keyboard that comes with this ultra-thin laptop is REALLY noisy and cheap-feeling. I'm used to aluminum keys and zero noise. Typing on the Royal, to me, sounds and feels exactly like pushing a shopping cart with a bad wheel. Clatter-racket-clatter-BUMP. There is just no way I'm going to be able to use this. I write Support at TP. The tech is sympathetic. Yep, he had the same reaction at first, but ... it gets easier to ignore. (I find it hard to believe.) He assures me that the slightly cheaper, slightly thicker Gentoo model has a less horrible keyboard, but that I shouldn't expect anywhere near the quality of keying I've come to expect on my ancient Mac. In the meantime, my SO falls in love with the Royal. She types with her long fingernails, and isn't as obsessive as I am about the noise. We decide she will keep it, and I'll fork out another $1200 for a Gentoo, fingers crossed. That weekend, I find the exact printer I just paid TP $75 for ... on a Target clearance shelf for $23. I bite my lip and soldier on. In the meantime, I notice that ZAreason.com has one called the Alto. The closer I look at it, the more it appears to be absolutely identical with the Gentoo from TP. Same ports in the same places, same range of HDs offered, everything. Spec'd out almost identically, it's $100 less. But ... there's that wireless card issue, right? Only TP has the Atheros offered. Damn. I shoot zareason an email and explain. Oh sure, they say. We get that question all the time, and we'll be glad to swap out the wifi card for your preferred freedom-loving one. Hmm. Okay. This time, my $1200 goes to Berkeley. I wait again, and this time the wait is longer. Speed points to TP. The Alto arrives, and I'm thrilled again. Looks nice, works good, and this time the keyboard is acceptable. Not anywhere near great--I will end up spending another $40 on a wireless one for it--but at least not rattling garbage. I find myself, though, treating it very gently. It feels ... fragile. Hard to say why. But I do not feel free to bash-type away on it at 100 wpm like I do the old machine. 28 days later, fragility is confirmed. I pull it out of it's branded ZA laptop case (another $40), and the hinge is broken. Not snapped, or cracked, just sprung. I have treated this laptop with great gentleness. It's less than a month old. I paid through the nose for it. And ... it just broke itself, inside a padded bag. That six year old P-book? I paid the same amount for it. I dropped it more than once, from desk height, hating myself every time it hit the ground. And after all the battle scars, it was fine. I'm typing this on it right now, even though I wish I was over on my brand-new machine inside Manjaro or Trisquel. The moral of the story, for ZA, and TP, and System76, and LACLinux, is this. I can't WAIT to give you my money. I LOVE what you're about, philosophically and commercially. I will HAPPILY overpay for a free as in speech product. But god. Damn. I do need to feel that I'm not a complete idiot as a consumer. Work with me. Give me a machine that feels like a fat-finned Oldsmobile. That doesn't mind living in luggage half the day. That can take a punch like Humphrey Bogart. I'll pay 150
Re: [Trisquel-users] A game with free code, but non-free art & music - why not in the repos?
> IMO, math and function calls definately count as software code. Why would you say that? You wouldn't say that the math problems on a homework sheet count as software. Why should a mathematical expression be treated differently simply because software uses it? Function calls only do what their definitions tell them to do. The function calls themselves only give information: the name of the function, and a list of arguments. I don't see how simply listing a function call in a file counts as software.
Re: [Trisquel-users] Should Trisquel add a firewall by default
Yes, agree. Would be helpful if the firewall was turned on by default.
Re: [Trisquel-users] Antwort: TiVo solution
On 2013-05-01 03:09, holger.be...@gmail.com wrote: > so in term of suggesting / promoting non-free devices you Silicon Dust > devices are not "better" than using a TV adapter which relies on a > firmware blob. I believe they are much better, yes. They give unlimited access to unencrypted streams in programmatic ways in addition to exposing the hardware to free open source drivers and software without touching the OS. They have achieved an abstraction layer that I consider a good design. Perfect, and compliant with my ethics and freedom objectives, no. I made that clear in several ways in my posts. Have you asked them to license their firmware freely? That is what came up after the discussion on this thread. I don't have timne to pursue this. Chris or someone else could strike a deal and work with them like he did with QCA, I previously discussed this device with him - I doubt there is market for it just by seing the negative comments about pricing on the USB wifi device that just came out. I think it's a smart business decision to wait. > Not to sound offensive but such a list is useless since most likely 90 > to 95% of the consumer devices available rely on firmware files. Actually that would be 100%. The HD Homerun device doesn't rely on firmware files on your PC, it already has them onboard. As such your system can be considered almost free (BIOS?..). Your use of "most likely" while citing statistics without sources is not useful, on the other hand. Please don't do that. > Devices without relying on blobs are like the needle in the haystack ;) > ...but I guess that is something which Chris could tell us more on his > search for a blob-free device. Please don't GUESS - ask him directly, or do the search yourself and report back here. F. -- Fabián Rodríguez http://fsf.magicfab.ca signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [Trisquel-users] Fear and Loathing in Free Hardware build quality
Greetings and salutations kernelKurtz. I share your feelings. Most laptops sold today really are garbage. Ridiculously glossy, 1998 resolution screens, disgusting 'chiclet' keyboards, that horrible 16:9 ratio, and most recently, soldered on RAM and solid state storage (muh storage). You know what I did? I bought a 4 year old Thinkpad T61p for 200$. It has good, free 3D support in GNU/Linux, an unbeatable high resolution screen (you can get other T6x thinkpads with the venerable, and IMO, superior 4:3 aspect ratio), and a god-tier keyboard. The only caveat is this- you need to install a custom BIOS which will allow you to install a freedom respecting wifi card. No fuss, no muss. Just general computing the way it should be: cheap, powerful and most importantly, liberated. Don't think you have to spend in excess of 1000$ in order to get good GNU/Linux support. I can't speak for TP, but I know Chris is doing an important and noble job. I can only hope the quality of their laptops will improve (this isn't the first time I've heard of the RP's lacklustre keyboard).
[Trisquel-users] Linux Format
Interesting, this morning whilst at a visit to Sainsbury's supermarket saw a magazine called Linux Format, it came with a dvd with an interview with Richard Stallman and on the dvd cover Trisquel, the word is spreading !
Re: [Trisquel-users] Linux Format
Must've been a happy surprise! Hopefully it reaches somebody who values freedom.
Re: [Trisquel-users] Linux Format
Was it issue 171 (June 2013): http://www.linuxformat.com/archives
Re: [Trisquel-users] FSF Certifies Atheros-Based ThinkPenguin 802.11 N USB Adapter
I've been away from the forums for a little bit, but does this mean that both the drivers and firmware have been updated in the Trisquel repos to contain the free bits?
[Trisquel-users] Re : A game with free code, but non-free art & music - why not in the repos?
From an abstract point of view (i.e., forgetting about the hardware limitations), programming is like proving a theorem in a constructive way (i.e., constructing an actual solution to the problem). That actually is the fundamental reason why software, like mathematics, should not be patentable. The abstract problem is instantiated in a way that makes it solve *your* particular problem. It is crunching *your* numbers. You deserve control over it. All four freedoms. As for the function declarations, I agree. An API should never be copyrightable. At least for interoperability purposes.
Re: [Trisquel-users] Linux Format
It sounds to me more like issue 145 from June 2011: http://www.linuxformat.com/archives?issue=145
Re: [Trisquel-users] Linux Format
Yup - that's the one
Re: [Trisquel-users] FSF Certifies Atheros-Based ThinkPenguin 802.11 N USB Adapter
Here's the run down - Yes, this device can be used in freedom but it's not supported out of the box right now. I think this is why the ThinkPenguin website talks of the next Trisquel version. Two things are needed to make this device work: #1 - Support in the kernel #2 - The firmware Loading of these firmware files was previously blacklisted because they were proprietary. I've provided patches to quidam to remove this but, AFAIK, they have not been applied yet. However, my kernel at http://jxself.org/linux-libre/ does have the needed changes so you could use that as a stopgap measure until the Trisquel kernel has been updated. #2 is more difficult. Properly packaging the firwmare and including it in the Trisquel repositories will not be an easy task so for now your best bet is to compile the firmware yourself and drop it into /lib/firmware. My kernel (and eventually the Trisquel kernel) will load the firmware automatically if it finds it there. The firmware lives here - https://github.com/qca/open-ath9k-htc-firmware But you need to get an older version. Click on the Commits tab, find the last commit from March 31 2013 and click on the Browse Code link on the far right. If you'll notice, the next commit on April 1 changed the firmware version to 1.4 and the current kernel is unhappy about that - At least for now - that will change. So make sure to get the proper version, lest you go through all of this and find it doesn't work. Anyway, after you've clicked on the Browse Code link I mentioned you can download the source code as a .zip file. Unzip it, open a terminal, and run these commands in there: make toolchain ./build Once it's done you'll find the htc_7010.fw and htc_9271.fw files sitting there. Assuming that you're running a kernel that hasn't blacklisted loading these files (like mine, and eventually Trisquel's), just drop them into /lib/firmware. Hope this helps.
Re: [Trisquel-users] On the conversion of a Macbook Pro
Continuing the convertion, I found this multitouch gesture recognizer (under GNU GPL 2 license) called Touchegg: https://code.google.com/p/touchegg/ . Looks promising! It seems to have a second option for GUI: https://github.com/Raffarti/Touchegg-gce But it's under a CC Attribution 3.0 license. Not sure how (or if) the CC licenses address freedom issues. Let's test it! P.S. This guy also has some configurations to change key bindings and adapt them to the apple keyboard: http://task3.cc/881/configure-the-keyboard-for-your-macbook-and-ubuntu-12-04/
Re: [Trisquel-users] Fear and Loathing in Free Hardware build quality
Thanks for the reply, ahj. I think your advice is sound. Cory Doctorow made kind of the same point last July, if you read his review carefully enough: http://boingboing.net/2012/07/06/zareason-a-computer-company-w.html "ZaReason doesn't really do a laptop for road warriors (yet) ... Though I thoroughly support ZaReason's mission, I regret to say that I'm not their target market." My Alto will probably end up living a sheltered life as a desktop-replacement research machine. I'm back to square one on finding a capable, not-fragile travelling unit. I might do what you suggest, or I might try to hack around with a linuxified chromebook, single-distro. Either way, yes, 200-300, not $1000+ ... I won't be able to afford any more grand experiments for quite a while anyway.
Re: [Trisquel-users] FSF Certifies Atheros-Based ThinkPenguin 802.11 N USB Adapter
Until this is resolved, anyone that have an AR7010/AR9271 based device can download & install the driver I created a while ago, specifically for Trisquel. The driver currently supports all Trisquel releases that has the required ath9k_htc kernel module built-in (4.5 and up), both 32/64-bit, PAE/Non-PAE kernels, and also the backported 3.5 kernel from Toutatis. The download link is available on my profile page, under the Recommended FLOSS wireless card/dongle section. The reason why I does not post the direct link here is simply because the download location is a matter of change and I want to avoid dead/broken links.
Re: [Trisquel-users] A letter from Canada Type, and freedom 1
I finally figured out how to put it into words (and I can't believe it took this long. If you can copy something without cost, why should you have the freedom to charge any price you want for it?
[Trisquel-users] Newbie
I will keep this short and sweet. I am a new user of trisquel gnulinux and I love it. I have been using ubuntu for about two years now and it seems it keeps trying to go more and more mainstream with additions of nonfree software. I found out about trisquel gnulinux in Linux Format Magazine. So who ever chips in to the development of trisquel and the community keep up the good work. You have converted me.
Re: [Trisquel-users] A letter from Canada Type, and freedom 1
"why should you have the freedom to charge any price you want for it?" Why not? Paying can help support the development of free software. As an example, RMS used to charge money to send people free software on magnetic tape. This was a good way to raise money in the beginning of GNU so he could work on GNU. If it were required that programs be distributed without cost, I wonder where GNU would be today? RMS likely could not have dedicated 100% of his time to work on it as he did, quitting his job at MIT and all. If you're concerned about someone overcharging, don't be -- The thing about free software is that it spreads around - If they're overcharging you can be sure someone will come along and undercut their prices.
Re: [Trisquel-users] Newbie
Welcome to the community.
Re: [Trisquel-users] A letter from Canada Type, and freedom 1
El 01/05/13 16:22, ejectm...@me.com escribió: > If you can copy something without cost, why should you have the > freedom to charge any price you want for it? The cost to implement it may contain additional work or resources. If you have no right to charge, then you would have to finance it another way such as charging for time. At the end it comes to charging the real cost one way or another (if there is no monopoly). No monopoly is also gives way for you to have the same right to charge as the developer. ;-) -- Saludos libres, Quiliro Ordóñez Presidente (en conjunto con el resto de socios) Asociación de Software Libre del Ecuador - ASLE Av de la Prensa N58-219 y Cristóbal Vaca de Castro Quito, Ecuador (02)-600 8579 IRC: http://webchat.freenode.net?channels=asle&uio=OT10cnVlJjEwPXRydWU3a Todo correo que reciba será tratado como información pública, de libre copia y modificación, sin importar cualquier nota de confidencialidad.
Re: [Trisquel-users] Newbie
Welcome home. :-) It seems to me astounding that a nonfree magazine actually helped freedom for you. -- Saludos libres, Quiliro Ordóñez Presidente (en conjunto con el resto de socios) Asociación de Software Libre del Ecuador - ASLE Av de la Prensa N58-219 y Cristóbal Vaca de Castro Quito, Ecuador (02)-600 8579 IRC: http://webchat.freenode.net?channels=asle&uio=OT10cnVlJjEwPXRydWU3a Todo correo que reciba será tratado como información pública, de libre copia y modificación, sin importar cualquier nota de confidencialidad.
Re: [Trisquel-users] FSF Certifies Atheros-Based ThinkPenguin 802.11 N USB Adapter
I just sent them an email thanking them for making my life easy and not making me have to jump through hoops to get my hardware working, although that was in reference to the Atheros wireless NIC I put in my netbook. I also referenced this article in the email. Please, anyone who benefits from this move, email them to let them know we won't forget: qca.i...@qca.qualcomm.com
Re: [Trisquel-users] Multiple desktop's
Is it a good idea not use compiz? I have a issue with playing 720p on youtube?
Re: [Trisquel-users] Newbie
I'm new too, I would love to learn more about what Free Software is compare to open source.
Re: [Trisquel-users] Newbie
Here is what I am reading on. It may help you too. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/philosophy.html
Re: [Trisquel-users] Newbie
Thank you!
Re: [Trisquel-users] Newbie
You might also enjoy some of Richard Stallman's talks if you haven't seen them (or you might not, it depends what kind of person you are). I would recommend these ones: http://archive.org/details/20090203-Richard-Stallman-UofC-01 http://gobblin.se/u/onpon4/m/richard-stallman-a-free-digital-society-ann-arbor-mi/ I have sort of a bias for the second one because I was there personally, so it might not be as great as I think it is, but the first one is really good (and well-edited, no long pauses or anything like that).
