Re: [gNewSense-users] Hardware that support gnewsense

[Michał Masłowski]

> My laptop (Dell Inspiron N4010,intel core i5 processor, Intel 5
> Series/3400 Series Chipset Family PCI Express) comes with some hardware
> which have no support for ( based on the fact that they do not work with
> gnewsense without any additional firmware) gnewsense a completely free
> (as in freedom) GNU/Linux Operating System.So I am considering the
> replacement of some of them which are very important to me by those
> hardware which support gnewsense.

gNS deltah and metad have old software and parkes is not released yet,
so there is hardware easily supported by other free distributions like
Trisquel but not by current versions of gNS.  I'm not sure how it is on
deltah, but metad and Trisquel would have the "dmesg" command output
something with "DEBLOBBED" or "missing Free firmware" if a driver needs
non-free firmware (rarely fixed in newer versions, e.g. like the Nouveau
drivers for Nvidia video cards from Linux-libre 2.6.36).

There are projects providing newer kernels for gNS like
http://www.fscorsica.org/libre-kernel-optimization-solution-en.html,
they might improve device support.

> I want to have a working wired internet connection.I am listing some of
> the devices on my system : Ethernet Controller :Attansic Technology
> Corp. (Atheros AR8152 Ethernet Adapter)
> 
> Network Controller :Broadcom Corporation (Unknown Device).

No Attansic cards have firmware removed in new Linux-libre, so it could
work.  Some Broadcom cards work, some do not.

The atl1c driver in 2.6.36 (and maybe other versions) lists two versions
of AR8152 as supported, so it should work.

> Another important problem is that no USB device is detected when inserted.

How it is not detected?  Does "dmesg" write something about it?

> I also mention the audio and video devices for the sake of completion:
> Audio Device : Intel Corp (unknown Device)
> VGA Compatible Controller : Intel Corp (Unknown Device)
> I do not know whether this will result in some problems in playing video
> and audio files.I wish to know about this issue.

Unless it is GMA500 it should work unless it is too new.

> I also looked at the hardware list provided by the FSF.But I was not
> able to get much information on those devices on the net.

http://www.h-node.com/ is a useful resource, but is updated nearly only
by Trisquel users, so some hardware there might not work with gNS.

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