Recommendation: For An OS with proprietary firmware support

4 replies [Last post]
plpippen
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Joined: 05/18/2018

Good Day, I currently have a Libiquity Taurinus X200 that's libre-booted with Trisquel 9.
However, my issue is that I have this brand new laptop sitting around with Windows 10 on it.

https://www.target.com/p/hp-15-6-34-fhd-laptop-windows-11-home-in-s-mode-amd-ryzen-5-processor-8gb-ram-512gb-ssd-flash-storage-silver-15-ef2040tg/-/A-83710818#lnk=sametab

So I am seeking recommendations from the community here on a OS that I can configure to use the same software as Trisquel however it has proprietary firmware which I must use. I've tried Trisquel, Debian without the nonfree stuff. So I wish to use it without buying extra dongles. I thought about trying Gentoo, Slackware or even FreeBSD. Opinions, thoughts, ideas?

damidu
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Joined: 03/30/2021

Hello, I think you could use any linux distributions. All you need is the linux-firmware package and an original linux kernel, not linux-libre. You could build a kernel with firmware with trisquel too! And boot with that.

andyprough
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Joined: 02/12/2015

>"So I wish to use it without buying extra dongles."

It only needs one dongle for wifi. And that can be a cheap, super-mini USB wifi adaptor. Get that and use Trisquel, it's so better than other distros.

vita_cell
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Joined: 07/19/2015

Your best option is, to buy used Atheros card, will be about 5$, and replace your with Atheros one. The best solution.
If you use proprietary BIOS/UEFI, it might have some whitelist for "not approved" wifi cards. I seriously recommend to flash Libreboot.

jxself
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Joined: 09/13/2010

Please do not distribute, recommend, or support non-free software here - https://trisquel.info/en/wiki/trisquel-community-guidelines