From 74e6e32ac106f9f5073e2ed9445f9220b62574e0 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Francis Rowe Date: Tue, 13 Oct 2015 12:17:26 -0400 Subject: screw Debian/Fedora. What the hell was I even thinking... --- (limited to 'docs') diff --git a/docs/hcl/c201.html b/docs/hcl/c201.html index 8f13cdc..189d0fd 100644 --- a/docs/hcl/c201.html +++ b/docs/hcl/c201.html @@ -105,75 +105,8 @@ The libreboot project would like to see all FSF-endorsed distro projects port to these laptops. This includes Trisquel, GuixSD and others. And ProteanOS. Maybe even LibreCMC. The more the merrier. We need them, badly.

-

What can be done meanwhile?

- There are some other distributions, which are not freedom-friendly (institutionally speaking), but can be used as such with some tweaking. -

-

- There isn't much choice, but we can recommend these distributions for the time being: -

-

Debian GNU/Linux

-

- The FSF briefly details the problems with Debian: - https://www.gnu.org/distros/common-distros.html#Debian -

-

- You can actually run Debian without any proprietary software. The default installation comes without any proprietary software, - and although the project does have proprietary software, its only in a separate repository which isn't enabled by default. - The Debian project has a strict policy of keeping proprietary software out of the main repository, and moving it to a separate repository; - this repository is called non-free, with supplementary packages that require it in contrib, also not enabled by default. - If you install Debian and replace the kernel with linux-libre, - you can be reasonably certain not to install any proprietary software. However, make sure to exercise caution, since this isn't - endorsed at all, and mistakes can happen. -

-

- Note that this does not mean Debian is ok! Far from it! Institutionally, Debian is ethically questionable because it distributes proprietary software, - even if it's optional and not included by default. At the same time, they also do work on things like reproducible builds (recent example), - and it's the underpin design upon which Trisquel is ultimately based. Debian does a lot of good work, so it's a shame that they have this - silly issue, even after several years. -

-

- The libreboot project calls on Debian to outsource the hosting and documentation for non-free and contrib - to a separate, third party project (like what Fedora almost does, as described below). -

-

- There are linux-libre builds available for Debian, but only on x86 thus far. See: - https://jxself.org/linux-libre/. For now, you'll have to build linux-libre from source. -

-

Fedora GNU/Linux

-

- The FSF briefly details the problems with Fedora: - https://www.gnu.org/distros/common-distros.html#Fedora -

-

- Unlike Debian, Fedora (to the best of our knowledge) only distributes proprietary software in the form of firmware blobs for the Linux kernel. - There are repositories for Fedora that contain proprietary software, but none of those are official and have to be added. So just don't add them. - Then, delete linux and replace it with linux-libre. -

-

- Note that this does not mean Fedora is ok! Far from it! Institutionally, Fedora is ethically questionable because it distributes proprietary software, - even if it's easy to remove. -

-

- There are linux-libre builds available for Fedora, but only on x86 thus far. See: - http://www.fsfla.org/ikiwiki/selibre/linux-libre/freed-ora.en.html. - For now, you'll have to build linux-libre from source. -

-

We need libre distributions to be ported.

-

- As soon as possible, the libreboot project would like to remove mention of Fedora and Debian, which - we actually feel uncomfortable recommending to users, but saw as an acceptable (and temporary) compromise - (because otherwise, more people would either keep ChromeOS, or they would replace it with another distribution - that is worse than Debian/Fedora, freedom-wise. We decided that it was better to recommend the lesser evil, - than to leave people less certain). -

-

- In both Debian and Fedora, the browsers available do not try to steer the user away from proprietary browser plugins/add-ons. - For instance, they both use upstream FireFox (Debian merely removes the Mozilla branding and renames it to IceWeasel). Make - sure to check the license of any browser plugins that you install, to ensure that the plugin is free software. -

-

- There may also be other edge cases like this, so do beware when using those distributions. + We need these distributions to be ported as soon as possible.

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