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Insightful point. I came here to say, "How is it going without the binary blobs?", but RMS certainly manages. Even as a Linux user, I doubt I could ever go com

Insightful point. I came here to say, "How is it going without the binary blobs?", but RMS certainly manages. Even as a Linux user, I doubt I could ever go completely FOSS. (Or that I would ever want to.)

LukeShu 14y ago
I went ~1 year using just one binary blob[1], and it's been about ~.5 years since I replaced the WiFi card that it was for, and have gone 100% FOSS. I'm extremely happy with Parabola GNU/Linux (one of the FSF endorsed distros), both as an OS, and as a community. [1] It was for the iwl3495, and it was actually the only blob on my system--I was manually patching a Linux-libre kernel to re-add that one blob.
duaneb 14y ago
I went OSS only for many years. It's not that hard if you use ethernet and don't need 3d acceleration. Could the average person do it? Definitely not.
- osener 14y ago
  I believe possibilistic was talking about stuff like BIOS firmwares rather than graphics drivers.
- zanny 14y ago
  The OSS Radeon driver is more than sufficient nowadays for non-3d composting of windows and playback of video. Intels integrated gpu driver is also really good, to the point where you can play ~5 year old games on it just fine with a high end chip. I wonder how you would pull off OSS hard drive / ram / mobo / psu / etc. It would require that the design schematics and documentation are public. I assume many of them are, but some might not be, and it would be a pain to investigate open hardware.
icebraining 14y ago
rms uses an open hardware MIPS netbook made in China. According to the Debian wiki, "It is the only laptop with a free BIOS (PMON) and wireless support that doesn't require binary blobs."
- swa14 14y ago
  >>open hardware MIPS netbook made in China More specificly, the Lemote Yeelong, which is not only made in China (like most hardware I guess), but also designed there. It's neat enough if you can find one, with actually a pretty decent keyboard (for a netbook; rms uses a seperate keyboard with his).

LukeShu 14y ago

I went ~1 year using just one binary blob[1], and it's been about ~.5 years since I replaced the WiFi card that it was for, and have gone 100% FOSS. I'm extremely happy with Parabola GNU/Linux (one of the FSF endorsed distros), both as an OS, and as a community. [1] It was for the iwl3495, and it was actually the only blob on my system--I was manually patching a Linux-libre kernel to re-add that one blob.

duaneb 14y ago

I went OSS only for many years. It's not that hard if you use ethernet and don't need 3d acceleration. Could the average person do it? Definitely not.

osener 14y ago
I believe possibilistic was talking about stuff like BIOS firmwares rather than graphics drivers.
zanny 14y ago
The OSS Radeon driver is more than sufficient nowadays for non-3d composting of windows and playback of video. Intels integrated gpu driver is also really good, to the point where you can play ~5 year old games on it just fine with a high end chip. I wonder how you would pull off OSS hard drive / ram / mobo / psu / etc. It would require that the design schematics and documentation are public. I assume many of them are, but some might not be, and it would be a pain to investigate open hardware.

icebraining 14y ago

rms uses an open hardware MIPS netbook made in China. According to the Debian wiki, "It is the only laptop with a free BIOS (PMON) and wireless support that doesn't require binary blobs."

swa14 14y ago
>>open hardware MIPS netbook made in China More specificly, the Lemote Yeelong, which is not only made in China (like most hardware I guess), but also designed there. It's neat enough if you can find one, with actually a pretty decent keyboard (for a netbook; rms uses a seperate keyboard with his).