https://www.fsfla.org/pipermail/linux-libre/2026-April/003647.html

what the absolute shrigma

@novenary No one can hear linux-libre users even when not in space :P

@lanodan
"what if we took the world's most popular operating system..."
"uh-huh"
"and made it completely unusable"
"done"

@novenary Also love how they even remove documentation, GNU-fans would fork wikipedia for having anything about proprietary software.

@lanodan I'm surprised they use the internet at all, think about all the proprietary software on other people's computers

@novenary linux libre users when their computer doesn’t boot because there’s no firmware to load to components but it does it freely

@novenary @lanodan

“what if we took the world’s most popular operating system…”
“and made it completely unusable”
Isn’t that Windows?

@lanodan @novenary Debian, which also uses a deblobbed kernel, is used on the ISS.

In the Artemis II mission they used Windows and we all know how that went (two outlooks)

@halva world's free-est computer

@novenary Well, remember that rms basically invented the cloud (asks others to run proprietary software for him).

Plus well GNU only acts like hardliners, if you dig a bit some of the projects are on GitHub, some of their servers are running on Debian, …

@novenary @lanodan Think of the proprietary hardware and software handling all your Internet traffic outside your GNU/House.

@SuperDicq @novenary Get your head out of the desktop gutter.

@lanodan @novenary @SuperDicq
Inside of every Android is a penguin waiting to be free.

@moses_izumi @lanodan @novenary Linux is not an operating system and Android is a completely different operating system from GNU/Linux.

@SuperDicq @novenary @moses_izumi And nobody said operating system, stop being a bot.

@lanodan @novenary @moses_izumi >Nobody said operating system

@SuperDicq @novenary @moses_izumi Ah forgot that one because well, way too upthread and been 2 hours.
That said still stands, you're shoving desktop nonsense in there just to repeat your gnu talking cards.

@lanodan @novenary @moses_izumi No, I’m not. GNU/Linux is also an operating system for phones.

@lanodan @novenary @moses_izumi And some phones even use the Linux-Libre kernel from factory, such as at the Librem 5.

@SuperDicq @lanodan @novenary @moses_izumi A scamming company is a really good example of using broken software by default.

@phnt @lanodan @novenary @moses_izumi Other than the initial delivery issues that got overblown by scam people like Louis Rossman what is a scam about Purism nowadays?

I have the Librem 5. It is in my pocket. It is exists. It works. It’s not vaporware.

@SuperDicq @lanodan @phnt @novenary @moses_izumi 1 phone shipped in total. Hell yeah

@mischievoustomato @lanodan @phnt @novenary @moses_izumi I don’t think I’m the only person in the world who owns this phone.

@SuperDicq @lanodan @novenary @moses_izumi
>what is a scam about Purism nowadays?
Still refusing refunds and not delivering product they promised years ago?

>overblown by scam people like Louis Rossman
lol, lmao even.

@phnt @lanodan @novenary @moses_izumi Louis Rossman tries to sell source available software as equivalent or even better than free software. He is a scam.

@novenary @lanodan Like 95% of the problem is WiFi chipsets. The recurring villain of hardware support.

@chjara @lanodan GPUs:

@novenary @lanodan Intel GPUs have always had pretty good free support, pretty sure free AMDGPU can also run deblobbed, and pre-GSP Nouveau can run deblobbed too.

@novenary @lanodan WiFi, on the other hand, I've never had a machine I could run Linux-libre on, because of that.

@chjara @lanodan older intel igpus don't require firmware at all iirc, but since the ~ skylake era they've started using blobs (which might be optional in some cases)
for amdgpu I seriously doubt they're useful without loading blobs; not unlikely that you end up running outdated firmware from rom otherwise which is honestly worse than loading the blobs
for nouveau you get no power management so you end up with an extremely slow GPU

so depending on your definition of "running", yes, in most cases you can get an image on screen without blobs but you're not actually taking advantage of the hardware you've paid for

@chjara @lanodan rip ath9k, truly one of the chipsets of all time

@chjara @novenary Nah pretty sure it won't for AMDGPUs, or at least you'll not have good support for them.

Look at what it removes, it's completely bonkers.

@chjara @novenary @lanodan i don’t see a world where wifi hardware has libre firmware. closest you can get to it is running some proprietary firmware but stored on some spi flash that has the write protect enabled

@charlotte @chjara @lanodan this is the RYF way, and I don't think it's materially any different from having the host OS load it

@chjara @lanodan @novenary second closest is where the hw has firmware that whose source code can be shared, modified, compiled, but not installed

@charlotte @novenary @lanodan That'd actually be free, per the FSF's absurd rules.

@chjara @novenary @lanodan yeah it’s extremely silly. at least with “non-free” wifi chipsets there is a possibility that there is some way to circumvent the firmware signatures and reverse-engineer yourself into open source fw. you wouldn’t be able to use that legally of course

@charlotte @chjara @novenary I don't really see it either unless it's like ham-radio hardware which AFAIK is more limiting than with FCC/CE/… approved wifi chips unless you have a ham-radio license.

@lanodan @chjara @novenary no encryption to obscure communication, limits on the topics you can transmit, only communication with other HAMs. like it exists and is done in europe (HAMNET) but it’s not what anyone would expect from a wifi card

@lanodan @chjara @novenary OTOH amateur radio is the primary user of part of the 2.4GHz ISM band in germany with the note that interruptions from other stations should be expected which i think is Very Funny because that is the exact thing primary/secondary status should be about