Oh, no... Blobs!
Hi,
I am looking for answers about SoC ath9k. I have been asking around and doing some research but have not got yet the kind of answers I understand. I think Trisquel forum might be the best place to ask, as my main concern here is freedom.
My questions are:
If I were to build my own wireless router, would an ath9k based router require
any BLOB to fully work? How could I know that? Do I have to take into account any other thing?
Do you think an ath9k based router could perfectly work with no-blob free software? How could I know that?
I guess that, if that platform required no blob, I could perfectly use a no-blob operating system, right? Something like LibreCMC?
Please let me know what your thoughts are...
Thank you!
The answer is "it depends". Your question is too generic. Some hardware can work without proprietary firmware blobs, some cannot.
Maybe the problem is that my basic fundamentals are not right. Please correct me if you see anything that is not completely correct:
- ath9k is a driver for Atheros IEEE 802.11n PCI/PCI-Express and AHB WLAN based chipsets
- A chipset is like putting together all the basic parts of a computer into one integrated circuit
- If the ath9k driver is really free software (no blob in it) then I will just have to choose one of its supported chipsets.
So, in the first term, is the ath9k a blobbed software? Or is it really free?
And then, what other hardware components should I take into a account -besides the chipset- to build a router that can perfectly run a deblobbed operating system?
As far as I understand, the drivers are all under the GNU GPL because the license of Linux requires it. What may be proprietary is the firmware, i.e., the blob that the kernel sends to the peripheral and that is executed there (not on the main CPU). The Atheros AR9170, AR9270 and AR9271 chipsets have free firmware. There may be other ath9k chipsets with free software but I am not aware of them.
Thank you!! So then I will just have to use a deblobbed system and I am done, right?
I guess that'll have to be LibreCMC, because as far as I know it is the only one which is completely free software. Am I right?
But I guess that, if LibreCMC is already deblobbed and it is free, it should not be that hard to create another deblobbed system from LibreCMC. Am I right?
I guess you already know by now, but I am not a developer: )
And, what about the boot system? Is that a problem as it is in computers?
How does it work for wireless routers? Is it free software?
LibreCMC has got the "Respect your Freedom" certificate from the Free Software Foundation, so I guess there is no proprietary boot system there.