@meso@the.asbestos.cafe@waifu@waifuism.life@ovinu@the.asbestos.cafe Proprietary software being in the repo doesn't mean you are forced to install and use it lol. This FSF categorization is kinda stupid imo. The only thing installed by default with proprietary code is the kernel which is not that hard to swap out.
@dushman@waifu@ovinu no? I'm saying you are retarded by saying all Parabola is is arch linux with the kernel swapped out. You can still install Linux booby trapped with malware on Parabola
Parabola GNU/Linux-libre is the only Arch-based Linux distribution listed by the Free Software Foundation (FSF) as a fully free software distribution.
@meso@the.asbestos.cafe@ovinu@the.asbestos.cafe@waifu@waifuism.life his is like saying you do realize you can uninstall systemd on any distro yeahYou are implying switching to an unsupported init is on the same level as compiling a kernel which no it fucking ain't lmao
@dushman@waifu@ovinu this is like saying you do realize you can uninstall systemd on any distro yeah. Keep using pajeet reddit distros though that is exclusively your loss 😎 :gnujihad: :ignucius:
Well, the thing is, most of the non-FOSS shit I do use is due to it being a service. I use commercial services because they werk. I don’t think in terms of abstract Stallmanite ethics or whatever, I think in terms of, “Does this serve my purposes?”
@dushman@meso@waifu@ovinu@NEETzsche i would also like stuff to be mostly foss but i know how hard it is to monetize foss and that people wanna do what they wanna do. in the end most of the stuff i use and I'm hyped about is foss lol
@NEETzsche@dushman@meso@ovinu@waifu it's the same thing i believe in and funnily enough i use mostly free software when doing my stuff on my computer. music/video production essentially
I like making these companies walk that tightrope. For example, LLMs. There are FOSS (de facto) LLMs available, and while I appreciate the merit in them being runnable locally, the quality of the output legitimately just does not compare to GPT-4 or Claude+. I also don’t go out of my way to trigger the janny modules of either of these tools. But if they janny me too much, I will 100% use one of those clunky FOSS LLMs, and have.
Whichever one gives me the best output with the least bullshit is the one I use. And this attitude legitimately does pull these companies in the direction of sanity.
I don’t even care at this point about “wherever possible.” I just use what works best for the least money. What’s funny is, it quite often is some freetard shit, like for example what we’re using right now. so you don’t even need to be ideological to arrive at muh FOSS much of the time.
There are legitimate complaints about it but a lot of people also dunk on Lennart Pottering who wrote it and he's nutty. Personally, I use systemd free distros whenever I can.
@dushman@Moon@waifu@ovinu@meowch@laurel@lumi I don't use an X220. my BIOS has a function to somewhat neutralize ME, don't know what you mean. you're probably looking at the libreboot that was overtaken by proprietards
@dushman@Moon@waifu@ovinu@meowch@laurel@lumi no it's not? look it up, I don't even think you are correct in 2008, I don't see 2008 thinkpads very often in lists of supported thinkpads. reminder, the x220 came out in 2011
@dushman@Moon@waifu@ovinu@meowch@laurel@lumi yes, all of my computers run libreboot (not the proprietary fake libreboot). I don't know why you keep desperately trying to lie to prove your proprietard points
@dushman@Moon@waifu@ovinu@meowch@laurel@lumi I don't know what you mean, you keep rambling about some hardware being proprietary despite me saying that yeah dumbass obviously hardware is proprietary
if your distro wont even let me boot to troubleshoot anything because it insists on abiding by freetardism to the point entire drivers will be missing (cuz theyre not licensed under GPLv3 or whtever) then at that point the whole things not worth getting into
@dushman@Moon@waifu@ovinu@laurel@lumi Parabola doesn't have this issue retard, NOOO ACTUALLY THIS ISSUE SHOULD BE HAPPENING JUST READ ZE LINK!!!!! YOU DONT UNDERSTAND I WANT MY COMPUTER TO HAVE ISSUES!!
@dushman@Moon@waifu@ovinu@laurel@lumi no one plays them lol this is something you have to do only in this specific scenario. installing all kinds of normal everyday software is impossible with Artix without modifying some retarded settings they never warn about and that you most importantly should not have to edit, Parabola does not have this issue.
@dushman@meso@waifu@ovinu@laurel@lumi if you run 32 bit on your machine you're basically running and entire second set of libraries for everything right
@dushman@waifu@ovinu@laurel@lumi not going to enable shit in pacman.conf that parabola has by default. i dont run 32 bit software, im not retarded sorry
@dushman@Moon@waifu@ovinu@meowch@laurel@lumi and yet my computer doesn't actually run any proprietary code. don't know what you mean. hardware is by design proprietary, it really can't be any other way unless it was big enough to inspect with the naked eye. cc @Suiseiseki
@dushman >Any x86 machine comes preloaded with proprietary code. I believe you meant AMD64, as who uses 32 bit CPUs anymore?
Yes, the BIOS EEPROM chip more often than not comes with a proprietary BIOS.
>Even if you run Parabola your mobo will still run its proprietary BIOS and so on. Yes, but you at least didn't have to accept a proprietary software license, as the software merely came on the hardware you paid for, so you can at least run it without having to agree to anything.
Still, it would be better not to have a proprietary BIOS, in that case you can get a good motherboard like the KGPE-D16 or the KMCA-D8 and install: https://libreboot.at/
If you libreboot those motherboards, the BIOS EEPROM chip contains 100% free software and the hardware is stable enough for server use.
I'm typing this message now on a librebooted KGPE-D16 with 6282 SE's running only 100% free software.
>Build a RiscV machine or gtfo. RISC-V is a architecture design, so on its own, it's about as useful as trying to display something on a design for a screen - you clearly need to manufacture the screen first: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-hardware-designs.en.html
A few example RISC-V implementations in HDL are provided, but the problem is using those implementations.
There are a few RISC-V SoC's currently available that are fast enough to run GNU, but every single one has proprietary patented extensions, proprietary bootloaders and/or other proprietary components.
As a result, the only current way to use RISC-V in software freedom is to load up a hardware design for a RISC-V SoC onto a proprietary FGPA.
The only line of FGPA's fully usable is freedom is the iCE40 line - which are really designed for low power rather than speed, although they aren't that slow.
There are a few toy RISC-V CPU examples for certain iCE40 FGPA models with enough LUTs, but those can't really do much beyond run example .elf's that use minimal memory.
For a RISC-V setup of the sort to be usable, one would need to design a SBC with a fast enough FGPA to implement a usable processor, with external RAM chips and other FGPAs for peripherals.
I've concluded that'll eventually be the only way forward, but as there aren't any suitable FGPA's available currently, so I'm sticking with AMD64 computers that operate without me having to provide any proprietary software.
@meso >yet my computer doesn't actually run any proprietary code. You haven't loaded up any proprietary software onto your hardware, or accepted any proprietary software licenses, which is good for your freedom.
There is a sad fact that most computers contain many different chips with different functionality, some of which have internal EEPROM, which means that those chips technically run software that can be replaced (but in practice the chips are flashed once at the factory and never need to be updated again, as the functionality implemented within is typically mostly trivial and therefore can usually be gotten right at the factory).
Those who really love running all the proprietary software love to get on a high horse and mention the existence of such software, but such is really equivalent to a circuit - as you're not asked to accept a proprietary software license and it's never changed. The question is if that circuit has malicious functionality.
It's a sad fact that even with all the good work GNU has done, many things in computing are still proprietary, but rather than giving up completely, one should just work on developing free software replacements and install it as it becomes available.
Before there was no free compiler, so GNU had to use proprietary compilers. Once gcc was released, there was no reason to use a proprietary compiler ever again.
The same was when there was no free kernel that booted, but once Linux was released as free software in 1992 (temporarily but still), there was no reason to use a proprietary kernel ever again.
In the past there was no free BIOS's for (fast enough to be usable) computers, so even rms had to use a computer running a proprietary BIOS, but rather than give up, he tried for about 8 years to find a way to avoid a nonfree BIOS in a commercial machine: https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html
Eventually the Lemote Yeeloong because available, which has a free init program, so he got one of those.
A free init program was developed for certain thinkpads not long afterwards, so rms now uses thinkpads.
It's not really ideal that my computers HDD or SDD, EC or SuperIO, RTC, keyboard, mouse and monitor technically run proprietary software, but I don't provide that, or agree to any proprietary software licenses for such software and I will be glad to flash GNU HDD/control onto my HDD if that becomes available, but for the moment, there are worse freedom issues that have a higher priority for me.
While ideally you should be able to replace each proprietary part of your computer as GNU replaced Unix, unfortunately some hardware implements digital handcuffs to tyrannically stop you from doing that.
Nothing can be done to fix tyrant hardware unless you are/know a skilled cryptographer and there's a vulnerability, as a result, the only practical choice is to use hardware that doesn't cryptographically enforce the running of proprietary software - thankfully plenty of such hardware is still available.
>hardware is by design proprietary, it really can't be any other way unless it was big enough to inspect with the naked eye. Indeed, material compositions and manufacturing techniques are almost always kept proprietary, so even if you supply a free hardware design to a manufacturing company, the hardware that comes out at the end is proprietary - as you don't know how they made it.
Hardware features like circuit layouts are typically large enough to inspect with the naked eye and reverse engineered just via thought, but you can't be sure that you didn't miss a sneaky proprietary part of the layout.
The only way to have non-proprietary hardware would be to go mine all the raw materials yourself and handcraft all the manufacturing equipment yourself, which clearly isn't feasible.
The closest you can get to hardware freedom is FGPAs - although the FGPA itself is proprietary, you can load a free hardware design onto it and the hardware design operates as desired (many FGPAs may have malicious functionality, but good luck to any FGPA manufacturer trying to backdoor GNU/SoC reliably if the version being used was released after the manufacture date).