- sorting out non-free firmware [LWN.net]

- sorting out non-free firmware

Posted Jun 20, 2005 17:33 UTC (Mon) by rknop (guest, #66)
In reply to: - sorting out non-free firmware by davidw
Parent article: Debian release team meeting minutes

After a quick look at that site-- you list instabilities and brokenness.

What I'd really like to see is also a list of what works with just *free* drivers. I know that some people think I'm Spawn of the Devil and Trying to Undermine Practical Linux In The Name of Fanaticism for saying this, but I want to avoid non-free drivers on my Linux distro if at all possible.

Right now, I think this means that the fastest video card I can run is the Radeon 9200. However, I have become very confused as to the status of video cards and so forth, because most places one looks one gets info about the non-free drivers you can download.

There *are* some of us out there who want to have as-free-as-possible Linux distros with lots of stuff working. It'd be nice to have as central a clearinghouse as possible that really makes a clean distinction between "not supported", "supported only with proproprietary drivers", and "supported".

-Rob

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- sorting out non-free firmware

Posted Jun 20, 2005 18:00 UTC (Mon) by davidw (subscriber, #947) [Link]

I don't consider something to be 100% Linux Compatible unless it works with free drivers. For instance, we don't remove entries on the site where people have "managed to get it working with ndiswrapper" or "nvidia lets you download a binary driver". I think it is fair to mention those solutions (rather than just hiding and pretending they don't exist because they're not free), for those who are desperate and don't care as much wether it's free or not.

- sorting out non-free firmware

Posted Jun 21, 2005 14:47 UTC (Tue) by smoogen (subscriber, #97) [Link]

Ok how about a site that lists the cards that do work.. even if it is a
shorter list. Trying to find a working wireless pcmcia card that doesnt use
ndiswrappers seems to need a work of google exploration that I have at
least failed :).

- sorting out non-free firmware

Posted Jun 21, 2005 19:56 UTC (Tue) by davidw (subscriber, #947) [Link]

Usually there are a lot more things that *do* work than the few things that don't work.

- sorting out non-free firmware

Posted Jun 23, 2005 19:56 UTC (Thu) by mmarsh (subscriber, #17029) [Link]

Except that you don't necessarily know until you buy the card, take it home, spend a few hours trying to get it to work, and then finally taking it back to the store. That describes my recent experience trying to get a LinkSys wireless card working in my laptop. Fortunately, I had an old card known to work that I'd borrowed from someone I work with, and which I ultimately bought from him to spare me the hassle of finding a new card that works.

The bulk of the wireless cards out there might very well work perfectly with Linux, but many of them seem no longer to be on the market. Even hardware guides from December were recommending cards that I couldn't find at someplace like Staples or Office Depot.