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GNU operating system + Linux-libre kernel = 100% Freedom
Linux-libre, Free as in Freedo
Linux, the kernel developed and distributed by Linus Torvalds et al, contains non-Free Software, i.e., software that does not respect your essential freedoms, and it induces you to install additional non-Free Software that it doesn't contain.
Stux, a cute penguin. Few realize he's not Free.
Linux-libre is a project to maintain and publish 100% Free distributions of Linux, suitable for use in Free System Distributions, removing software that is included without source code, with obfuscated or obscured source code, under non-Free Software licenses, that do not permit you to change the software so that it does what you wish, and that induces or requires you to install additional pieces of non-Free Software.
Our releases can be easily adopted by 100% Free GNU/Linux distros, as well as by their users, by distros that want to enable their users to choose freedom, and by users of those that don't.
Although UTUTO-e was the first GNU/Linux distro to remove non-Free portions of Linux, Linux-libre follows and improves on the practices established by gNewSense and BLAG.
Free Software Foundation Latin America (FSFLA) joined the Linux-libre project as part of its campaign dubbed "¡Sé Libre!", to encourage and enable users to go beyond using some Free Software, and rather seek and choose freedom.
News
2011-10-31 - Wheezy mipsel binaries
James Turner maintains binary .debs of recent Linux-libre releases for Lemote Yeeloong (mipsel) netbooks.
2011-10-24 - gen5 - 3.1-libre
Newly-added xc4000, drxk_hard, em28xx-dvb, s5p-mfc, rtl8192de, adau1701, and sigma cleaned up. Fixed minor deblobbing bug in iwlwifi. Accept nouveau's new built-in FUC with accompanying source code (some nv cards remain limited by the lack of Free microcode). Dropped deblobbing for removed westbridge, ip2main, and myri_sbus drivers. Adjusted deblobbing for mach-imx, ft1000, brcmsmac, brcmfmac, mwifiex, dib7000p, and others.
2011-09-12 - Freesh binaries
Jason Self's Freesh apt repository carries binary .debs for 32- and 64-bit x86 systems, and support for more architectures is planned. Thanks!
2011-05-19 - gen5 - 2.6.39-libre
Newly-added technisat-usb2, fm_drv (WL128X), rtl8192cu, ums-eneub6250, and snd-usb-6fire cleaned up. Adjusted deblobbing of computone, cyclades, isi moxa_intellio, dib0700, cx23885, bnx2, brcmsmac, iwlegacy, iwlagn, rtl8192ce, rtl8192u, r8712u, and atmel-mxt. Dropped deblobbing of dabusb (driver removed from upstream, with blobs left over) and dx-sep.
2011-03-15 - gen5 - 2.6.38-libre
Nouveau requested blobs again, large ones this time; radeon required more blobs for new cards; newly-added wl1273, rtl8192ce, can_softing, and re-introduced dx_sep depended on blobs; bnx2 and bnx2x had updated blobs as usual; r8169's blobs were moved out of the sources; dabusb, vicam, wl1xx, serial_cs, icom, and serial_qe were moved about in the tree; bcm_wimax and snd_intel_sst required deblobbing updates; 3c359 had its harmlessly-buggy cleaning-up fixed.
2011-01-09 - gen5 - Updated 2.6.27..36
The README blurb, the loading of PCMCIA CIS files and the fix for the message that recommended the installation of non-Free Software were all backported to the following releases: 2.6.36.3-libre1, 2.6.35.10-libre3, 2.6.34.8-libre2, 2.6.33.7-libre1, 2.6.32.28-libre2, 2.6.31.14-libre4, 2.6.30.10-libre3, 2.6.29.6-libre3, 2.6.28.10-libre5, 2.6.27.57-libre5, as well as their baselines 2.6.36-libre1, 2.6.35-libre3, 2.6.34-libre2, 2.6.33-libre1, 2.6.32-libre2, 2.6.31-libre4, 2.6.30-libre3, 2.6.29-libre3, 2.6.28-libre5, 2.6.27-libre5. The deblobbing scripts in 2.6.37-libre were updated with cosmetic changes that did not change the output. Patch files between base releases and from base to patch release are now GPG-signed, compressed with both bzip2 and lzip. The tarballs for older releases, containing the Free Bait freedom bug, were removed, and the xdeltas and scripts moved to old/gen4.
2011-01-05 - gen5 - 2.6.37-libre
New README blurb about Linux-libre, re-enabled loading of PCMCIA CIS files found to be available under Free with sources elsewhere, adjusted Libertas drivers to accept user-specified firmware, fixed error message that recommended the installation of non-Free Software, removed the newly-introduced blobs from 5 new drivers, disabled requests for blobs from 10 new drivers, updated the cleaning up of 5 drivers, removed the deblobbing of 1 blob-dependent and 1 blob-in-sources driver dropped from staging.
2010-11-07 - Linux-libre/planet .debs
Aurélien Desbrières's Linux-libre binaries are now available at an apt repository on our servers and mirrors. To get easy access to them, add the following line to your sources.list:
deb http://linux-libre.fsfla.org/pub/linux-libre/planet planet main
2010-10-21 - 2.6.36-libre
Deblobbed 2 new blob-dependent drivers, adjusted the deblobbing of 3 others, dropped deblobbing of nouveau, now blob-free, and of a dropped driver. Read the announcement.
2010-02-24 - 2.6.33-libre, generation 4
New, much faster deblob-check, based on Python, GNU awk, PERL or GNU sed, at your choice. Updated for 2.6.33. Blobs are growing faster than Linux. Read the announcement.
2009-12-13 - Linux-libre for Lemote Yeeloong with Freedo
Linux-libre binaries (.deb) for gNewSense metad/mipsel (for Lemote Yeeloong) are available. Compared with the gNewSense binaries, they add a number of modules, and display Freedo as the boot-time logo.
2009-12-08 - gen3 - 2.6.32-libre, 2.6.31-libre2, 2.6.30-libre1
Updated for 2.6.32, fixed deblobbing bugs (some cosmetic issues, some compile errors in a few drivers in staging, such as ME4000, RT2670, RT2680, and RT3070) in 2.6.31 and 2.6.30. Backported the newer deblobbing of Radeon, R128, and BNX2X to 2.6.30. Untested backports to earlier kernel releases are in the SVN repository.
2009-09-21 - gen3 - 2.6.31-libre1
Fixes deblobbing errors in usbdux staging drivers, reworks the deblobbing of Radeon, R128 and MGA drivers, in preparation for removal of the firmware from upstream, and improves operation with –force for better operation with already-deblobbed kernels and other variants.
2009-06-12 - gen3 - 2.6.30-libre
Broadcom b43 WiFi should now work with the Free reverse-engineered firmware. Other than that, this release just updates to the deblobbing machinery to deal with all the upstream shuffling and addition of non-Free firmware and of dependencies on non-Free firmware.
2009-06-09 - gen3 - 2.6.29-libre1, 2.6.28-libre3 and 2.6.27-libre2
This release fixes regressions in e100 and radeon introduced in the gen2 releases, and fixes a few deblobbing errors. Read the announcement.
2009-03-31 - gen2 - 2.6.28-libre2 and 2.6.29-libre released
The 2.6.28-libre2 release fixes a number of problems in 2.6.28-libre1: some compile errors caused by deblobbing, a few missed non-Free firmware names and references to non-Free firmware, and some shell scripting portability issues. 2.6.28.9-libre2 is also available.
The 2.6.29-libre release uses the same deblobbing infrastructure as 2.6.28-libre2, but it's updated for 2.6.29, and adapted to deal with the pieces of non-Free firmware and drivers that require external non-Free firmware added to the upstream release.
2009-03-21 - gen2 - 2.6.28-libre1 released at Libre Planet 2009
This is the first release completely suitable for Free System Distributions: not only does it remove non-Free Software (and brings back some data tables that used to be removed in earlier release), it also removes requests for and documentation that induced users to install and use non-Free Software.
Get the slides and the audio of the launch speech at the Libre Planet 2009 web site.
How it is done
The removal of non-Free bits from the kernel Linux is accomplished with the script deblob-main, that in turn uses deblob-<kver> and deblob-check.
deblob-<kver> is inspired in gNewSense's scripts, later customized for BLAG by Jeff Moe, and then further improved as part of the linux-libre project.
deblob-check is a script that you can use to test whether a kernel source file, a patch or a tarball, contains any remaining or suspicious firmware blob.
How to participate
- Mailing list
- http://www.fsfla.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-libre
- SVN repository
- http://www.fsfla.org/svn/fsfla/software/linux-libre/
Downloads
- releases
- 100% Freed Linux sources of various upstream releases, that also won't induce users to install non-Free Software. Stay away from the old/gen1 subdirectory, it contains historical archives of earlier releases into which non-Free Software may have leaked, and Free Software that induced users to install non-Free Software.
- SIGNING-KEY
- The GnuPG keys used to sign source tarballs, patches and Freed-ora packages.
- freed-ora
- 100% Freed Linux-libre kernel packages tracking Fedora kernel builds.
- freed-ebian
- 100% Freed Linux-libre kernel packages tracking Debian kernel builds. Mirrored from Robert Millan's repository.
- lemote/gnewsense
- Linux-libre binaries and sources for gNewSense/mipsel, for Lemote Yeeloong laptops, with Freedo as the boot logo.
Mirrors
FSFLA
http://www.linux-libre.fsfla.org/pub/linux-libre/
rsync://rsync.linux-libre.fsfla.org/linux-libre/
http://www.fsfla.org/selibre/linux-libre/download/
rsync://fsfla.org/linux-libre/ (no freed-ora/debuginfo here)
linux.org.tr
http://ftp.linux.org.tr/linux-libre/
ftp://ftp.linux.org.tr/linux-libre/
rsync://ftp.linux.org.tr/linux-libre/
Robert Millan's Freed-ebian upstream repository (no longer maintained)
http://people.debian.org/~rmh/linux-libre/ (freed-ebian only)
SVN repository structure
- scripts/deblob-main
- The main script to clean up a linux tarball.
- scripts/deblob-check
- A script that recognizes and optionally cleans up blobs.
- scripts/deblob-2.6.##
- Scripts that clean up blobs from within exploded Linux source trees.
- scripts/README
- More details on usage of these scripts.
- freed-ora
- See freed-ora.
- freed-ebian
- Scripts and diffs used to maintain freed-ebian packages.
- lemote
- Scripts and diffs used to maintain Linux-libre binary packages for Lemote Yeeloong notebooks.
Lux, a g[e]nuine holy free penguin.
Other sources of binaries
- Aurélien Desbrières builds Linux-libre/planet .debs for x86 out of recent Linux-libre tarballs, for general use.
- Jason Self maintains the Freesh apt repository with .debs of recent Linux-libre releases for 32- and 64-bit x86.
- Ali Gündüz used to do that, too.
- Juan Jacobo Nájera builds binary packages with real-time support.
- James Turner builds binary .debs of recent Linux-libre releases for Lemote Yeeloong (mipsel) netbooks.
- Robert Millan used to build Freed-ebian packages.
- BLAG ships our Freed-ora kernels.
- gNewSense ships Linux-libre kernels, cleaned up with an older approach.
- Damián Fossi maintains Linux-libre binaries for gNewSense/MIPS (for Lemote Yeeloong laptops), and for Canaima GNU/Linux.
- VENENUX GNU/Linux switched to Linux-libre as of its 0.8-rc3 release.
- Trisquel ships 100% Free Linux kernels, based on Linux-libre from version 2.1 onwards.
- Drágora GNU/Linux has shipped Linux-libre in all of its releases.
- Kongoni has adopted Linux-libre as of the Nietszche release.
- VegnuX NeonatoX GNU/Linux has shipped Linux-libre since the 0.48 release.
- Amagi is a gNewSense-based distro for Lemote Yeeloong laptops.
- Parábola GNU/Linux has Linux-libre binaries in its package repositories. If you use the distro on which Parábola is based, these packages could turn it into Freeda d'Arc.
- ConnochaetOS is a light distro, also with Freeda d'Arc potential.
- RMS GNU/Linux-libre (RMS's Mostly Slax) ships Linux-libre in a Live pen-drive light distro.
- Tlamaki GNU con Linux was based on Trisquel, but it rebased, becoming a FreedSUSE.
Freetz, our mascot's older brother.
- Musix GNU+Linux's adoption of Linux-libre is underway.
- Dyne:bolic is going to have Linux-libre in its next release.
- Genfree ebuild scripts are available too, thanks to Nick White.
- There are binary packages for Arch [GNU/]Linux.
- If you roll out your own generally-available Linux-libre-based binaries, let us know.
Artwork
The hanging penguin picture was taken by Lewis Laë in November, 2007, and he was kind enough to grant us permission to use it as a logo, in private e-mail. Merci beaucoup, lew!
Anyhow, the picture didn't make for a very good logo. The penguin is cute and clean indeed, but he's still a prisoner. That's why we call him Stux.
Burnaron drew the penguin getting out of the shower (thanks!). He posted a vectorial version too. We call him Freetz.
Freedo, the Linux-libre mascot.
Rubén Rodrígues Pérez gave, erhm, birth to Freetz's younger brother, Freedo, our official (vectorial) logo. The name was suggested by Jeff Moe. Fernando suggested a grey version for printing in fewer colors. The final touches to Freedo were given by Islene Calciolari Garcia and Alexandre Oliva.
Alexandre Oliva combined Freedo with GNU, creating the image at the top of the page (vectorial). Binaries published by the Linux-libre project are going to be configured to display this logo at boot up. If you want to use it too, look for patches named 100gnu+freedo.patch, in directories named after Linux-libre builds within SVN repository. A few kernels used an older variant (vectorial).
Guillaume Pasquet drew Lux, the holy free penguin (thanks!), based on Larry Ewing's original tux; both must be credited for this art work. Here's a vectorial version.
Alexandre Oliva put together the levitating gnu, and Lux, being levitated out of the cage. This picture (and the corresponding sources) are licensed under the same terms as the levitating gnu: GPLv3+ or GFDL1.1 without invariant sections, front or back cover texts.
Last update: 2012-01-05 (Rev 8283)