Re: [gNewSense-users] How to voluntarily follow gNewSense / FSF guidelines on my Ubuntu Apple PPC?

[Karl Goetz]

On Sat, 2008-08-30 at 14:21 +0100, Benjamin Webb wrote:
> 2008/8/30 Brian Greer <address@hidden>:
> > gNewSense has been instrumental in educating me about free vs open software,
> > even though I have been in the game casually since about '95 starting with
> > Yggdrasil. :)  Thanks for the education - I thought I knew what free meant,
> > but found out I really didn't!
> >

We hope you hang around :)

> > I also run Ubuntu Hardy 8.04 LTS (and Debian Etch) on my G5 iMac, and know
> > firsthand the difficulties of what is involved with supporting a PPC
> > distrubution of any sort.

I run Etch on my Apple(s) here.

> >
> > Using gNewSense on my HP-Pavilion s7700n pc as a guide, I'd like to at least
> > _voluntarily_ follow the FSF guidelines on a personal level and help guide
> > friends that I have installed the ppc Ubuntu version on by doing the
> > following:  (I could go the Gentoo route I suppose, but would like to at
> > least get as close as I can to FSF guidelines with Ubuntu for my friends who
> > are not make-install savvy. :)

Unless you manually hacked source while emerging, gentoo wont keep you
much freer.

> >
> > * Lock out improper repositories - lock down the sources.list file etc

This is not really FSF or gNS guideline.
Making it hard for people to use thier computers does not bring
freedom :)
*encouraging* them to use "improper repositories", would be A Bad Thing.

> >
> > * Use free video drivers, lock out glx and dri.  Usually not a problem
> > because proprietary drivers don't exist for ppc!

However some free drivers contain non-free code (iirc our ATI driver, or
NV?).

> >
> > * Not sure about the wi-fi since I'm not doing wifi with airport cards -
> > I'll have to research that.

Apple use broadcom ethernet and (iirc) broadcom wifi. Both largely
unsupported by free software.

> >
> > * Disabling non-free kernel modules - I could use some help here from other
> > Ubuntu / Debian ppc users to see how much I can get away with.

Depends what needs to still work after removing bits and pieces.
Remember gNS is about providing a free system. not a 'freeish' system ;)

> > * Use gNewSense repos on my pc as a reference - for instance running  the
> > Epiphany-browser instead of Firefox etc.  New program? - consult the
> > gNewSense repos first, mailing lists, irc etc.

Interesting way to go about it. Also by and large, Debian main as well
(but there are freedom bugs there).

> >
> > * I'm not sure on the freedom-status of PPC's openfirmware in forth -
> > another thing to check

I dont recall being able to download the OF code from apple, but i never
looked very hard.

> >
> > While this might be good personally, does anyone feel that it isn't really
> > worth the effort if it doesn't follow the fsf guidelines 100 percent?

I'd say matter of personal opinion. I'd say any increase in your freedom
is a worthwhile thing.

> >
> 
> I don't know if this is too unrealistic or difficult, but the most
> foolproof way to have a ppc system as free as gnewsense would be to
> port gnewsense to ppc. The main gnewsense team may not currently be
> abel to support ppc, but with your help they might be able to. The
> main advantage to using actual gnewsense is that even without non-free
> modules, ubuntu's ppc kernels will have non-free firmware.

I was working on PPC support for a while, and got ppc packages built for
gNS 1.x. (never got the live cd building working).
I decided not to bother with 2.x because upstream (ubuntu) no longer
offically support PPC, so any problems would be our problem
(exclusively).
kk

> 
> Possibly not a viable option, but just my two pence.
> 
-- 
Karl Goetz, (Kamping_Kaiser / VK5FOSS)
Debian user / gNewSense contributor
http://www.kgoetz.id.au
No, I won't join your social networking group

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