Sorry, I am very sensible regarding this topic. I may have overreacted too.

I would suggest we keep those comments here for the overall content and shake hands :)

https://lemmy.world/comment/20605369

I have to answer to this post directly… First of all: I am a member of the European free software foundation. I am since over 10 years.

Using those distributions is, sadly, a security risk!

Everybody must be absolutely clear about the fact that CPU microcode updates are property blobs, and therefore removed by those projects.

This means: Your CPU runs with only the build in firmware and is most likely vulnerable against many CPU level attacks. CPU bugs can only be fixed with microcode , and if you drop those from the systems you leave the systems vulnerable.

Full free software distributions are a important, but very esoteric.

OP claims even the kernel itself is non free software. So let me just cite the kernel archive

Is Linux Kernel Free Software?

Linux kernel is released under the terms of GNU GPL version 2 and is therefore Free Software as defined by the Free Software Foundation.

I heard that Linux ships with non-free “blobs”

Before many devices are able to communicate with the OS, they must first be initialized with the “firmware” provided by the device manufacturer. This firmware is not part of Linux and isn’t “executed” by the kernel – it is merely uploaded to the device during the driver initialization stage.

While some firmware images are built from free software, a large subset of it is only available for redistribution in binary-only form. To avoid any licensing confusion, firmware blobs were moved from the main Linux tree into a separate repository called linux-firmware.

It is possible to use Linux without any non-free firmware binaries, but usually at the cost of rendering a lot of hardware inoperable. Furthermore, many devices that do not require a firmware blob during driver initialization simply already come with non-free firmware preinstalled on them. If your goal is to run a 100% free-as-in-freedom setup, you will often need to go a lot further than just avoiding loadable binary-only firmware blobs.

https://www.kernel.org/faq.html

We ate talking about:

• CPU Microcode
• Firmware for network and WiFi cards

Those are not just “some hardware will not work”. Currently, don’t using those blobs that you will have an vulnerable CPU but ad you are also offline that should be safe /sarcasm

So, you have an open system with coreboot, and do not use firmware?

You don’t load the microcode patches that makes you CPU safe?

You know that then you should not use any browser with JS or WASM engine? just asking because those exploits are still being used …

You claimed there are binary firmware blobs in the Kernel tree. And the kernel is not free. That is your claim. Proof it!

I am building my kernel from sources. I am writing Kernel modules. I damn well know what in the kernel is.

So, come on. If this such a critical issue that you will for sure have no issues to proof it.

I don’t know, they seem to scrub everything related to firmware loading and more. A whole while ago, the kernel contained blobs. Those are moved to the Linux firmware project and no longer part of the kernel l.

So, you are the one here claiming stuff. Proof it. Where is the firmware in the kernel tree?

I don’t get what?

There is a reason for the naming hardware, firmware, software.

HARD, FIRM, SOFT.

No, hardware das not bekomme Software just because it has firmware.

And yes it would love to see free firmware.

Look at CPU microcode. It is used to fix security issues in hardware. Without it you are vulnerable. Not using the property firmware blob to update the microcode is a very very bad idea. Does that make the CPU software…

Where is there firmware in the Kernel tree?

https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/

What a bunch of bullshit.

Linux, first of all, is the kernel. Linux is GPL and always free.

And userspace zurück itself is about 90% free.

Of course, you can choose a 100% free os, then make sure you use a free bios and only open hardware CPU and Mainboard and memory! 09 This argument is esoteric. I am an FSF member, but I use Steam on Gentoo.

The idea behind such distro lists is to show how hard it still is to provide a really 100% open source distro.

Let me remind you, what is non free in in most systems:

• CPU microcode!
• GPU Firmware
• Wifi / BT / Ethernet firmware
• Media Codecs

Stuff most users need!

And what the fuck is I distro locking me in? I can switch my distro between boots without fucking loosing any data or configs, I can choose what to install. I can install stuff from source. How can you even try to compare this with Microsofts property black box?

Because you can not see what the microcode blob does with your CPU? The CPU you can not inspect also? Or the GPU? Or the BIOS?

This. No property firmware blobs, nothing that is considered non free software.

So, no Nvidia graphics for gaming, no wifi and bt, a bunch of software not available.

Sure, but everybody is aware that roughly 30% of the Internet run on ubuntu:latest and well, that will move to 25.10 soon.

And yes, nobody should do this, using a latest tag for docker builds, but everybody does it … So …

Maybe, but there is the internal buffer. Also, most I/O happens in files not consoles

std::endl is used in output streams in C++ to end the line, using the os specific line termination sequence, and flush the buffer.

The later one is a performance issue in many cases, why the use of "\n" is considered preferred

We are using relativ old Hardware, old thinkpads. They would not be able to run Windows 10 or 11 bare metal ;)

This does not help with Ruida Controllers and fiber Lasers. Both things I have at my company and we don’t have any Windows System.

That is such a shame. And since we need to talk over usb, wine will not work either 😞

There us so much wrong with this article. From installing a fucking browser via flatpack, over ignoring the fact that office 365 is a thing to the fact that there are alternatives to Adobe.

Sure, not everything is perfect right now, and people have to learn new stuff.

I have migrated multiple people to fedora in the last two years. And guess what, regardless of type or age of user, they had no troubles with it to this day. They use gimp, play, have browsers with password managers, and write office documents. Yes. MS office.

Articles like this are one reason why people hesitate to make the switch. Doompainting, that’s all it is.

And what the hell are you talking about vrr? Kde, sway and hyperland support it for years now under wayland. Gnome still does not have it, but that is gnome.

And if more distributions would not per default use gnome, such misconceptions wouldn’t exist in the first place.