trisquel policy on b43 drivers
Hi there, I was trying to run a lenovo thinkpad with trisquel. I found out that my wireless card would only work with the b43 proprietary drivers. Even worse you cannot exchange that card against annother one without the computer being prevented from booting. In such a case - what do the rest of the free software community suggest? Not use wireless, switch to Ubuntu and install the proprietary drivers or throw the computer away? I wonder about your views on this...
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You could get a USB dongle.
I have a dlink pcmcia card which uses the ath9k drivers which are free
software, it's wireless N so the speed is nice. I use this on my
Thinkpad T61.
I hope that you got a Thinkpad with an Intel graphics card, otherwise
you'll not have very good support for graphics drivers from free
software.
If you get a usb dongle and pcmcia card, remember that you'll need to
disable your internal wifi, even if the drivers don't work with it.
Otherwise it seems to make it impossible to use the second wifi device.
On Tue, 2011-08-09 at 09:35 +0200, name at domain wrote:
> Hi there, I was trying to run a lenovo thinkpad with trisquel. I found out
> that my wireless card would only work with the b43 proprietary drivers. Even
> worse you cannot exchange that card against annother one without the computer
> being prevented from booting. In such a case - what do the rest of the free
> software community suggest? Not use wireless, switch to Ubuntu and install
> the proprietary drivers or throw the computer away? I wonder about your views
> on this...
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On my current netbook (which has wifi supported by free drivers) in order to get a dongle working I need my internal wifi to be on (when I turn on wifi I can also see the dongle).
I would second the USB dongle. We had a similar issue a few days ago with someone else that got solved (http://trisquel.info/en/forum/netgear-wg111-v3-problem). I got a similar model for $10.00 refurbished.
As far as the policy goes if it is proprietary we don't include it.
Thanks for your thoughts guys:-)
By the way with regards to your question about installing Ubuntu and the non-free driver that would be the last thing I would do (well short of installing windows). While I can't advocate installing non-free software it is your computer and you can do with it what you want. However lets say you were to install the non-free software you have two choices.
1) Install Trisquel with non-free driver. This means that you have 1 non-free program on your computer.
2) Install Ubuntu with non-free driver. This means you have quite a few non-free programs on your computer.
(1) is obviously preferable to (2).
Now option (3) would be as mentioned above to get a wireless device that works with Free Software which is the recommended option. (1) and (2) are non-recommended options however (1) is definitely preferable to (2)
Dear Sir Grant
Option 3 is not an option because the hardware has a mechanism that prevents the computer from booting if you change the wireless device. Some has been written on that on the fsf.org website but no solution is being offered.
Option 2 - I agree! But when I tried to do that I got stuck because the trisquel distro has no menu for hardware drivers. I don't know how to do it and feel bad asking for help on here with installing a non free driver.
Short of getting rid of the computer or not going online which is what it's there for I have no option. Longterm somebody has to reverse engineer the b43 driver for broadcom as there seem to be millions of people in this dilemma.
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sascha, I think your'e mixing up two different things:
1. If you open a laptop and change its internal wireless adapter the BIOS might refuse to boot.
2. Connecting an external USB dongle does not change your hardware configuration at all.
If you use a USB dongle the BIOS should boot fine as you didn't physically change any hardware on the computer. Trisquel should recognise the dongle if it is supported by a free driver (you might need to enable or disable the internal wireless for this to work).
You usually have to just disable the internal wireless. Can you post a link to that internal FSF.org site. I would just like to clarify my statement above and say both options (1) and (2) are bad options and just because one is slightly "less bad" then the other doesn't make it good.
Usually laptops have a hardware switch where you can disable the internal wireless. What model are you using maybe I can look up the documentation for that laptop.
Also it isn't always that people have to reverse engineer drivers. Sometimes manufacturers of their own will release them as free software.
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Getting a WLAN USB-stick would be the best option, the notebook would boot 100%, no matter what the BIOS prevents it to do. It is just a device, like a USB mouse or a headset that you plug into the notebook at runtime. Fortunately, connecting different USB devices is still one freedom even proprietary BIOSes grant us.
Now it certainly costs you something. It is not much, though. As long you have no such USB-stick, try installing the non-free driver or a GNU/Linux distro with the binary blobs in the kernel (which is basically almost every other distro in existance).
thank you all very much - I will try the USB dongle indeed
On Thu, 11 Aug 2011 12:18:41 +0200 (CEST), name at domain
wrote:
> Dear Sir Grant
>
> Option 3 is not an option because the hardware has a mechanism that
> prevents
> the computer from booting if you change the wireless device. Some has
been
>
> written on that on the fsf.org website but no solution is being offered.
Hi,
I would like to invite you to document all this issues with you machine at
h-node.com, since it prevents users to use it in freedom and that way
people would be advise before they think about buying that model or from
that manufacturer.
>
> Option 2 - I agree! But when I tried to do that I got stuck because the
> trisquel distro has no menu for hardware drivers. I don't know how to do
> it
> and feel bad asking for help on here with installing a non free driver.
In short words, you can't, i mean even if you try.
AFAIK the deblob scripts from Linux-libre that are run over the trisquel's
kernel prevent non free firmware or drivers to be enabled.
>
> Short of getting rid of the computer or not going online which is what
> it's
> there for I have no option. Longterm somebody has to reverse engineer
the
> b43
> driver for broadcom as there seem to be millions of people in this
dilemma.
Indeed it's a problem, once again if you help us to point it out on h-node
we would appreciated.
Cheers!
--
Luis A. Guzmán García
http://ark.switnet.org
¡Se Libre! -- http://fsfla.org/selibre/
The Hardware Database Project -- http://www.h-node.com
Distribuciones libres de GNU/Linux -- http://ur1.ca/3e8gu
Dear Luis, the problem has already been documented here: http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/net/wireless/cards.html/?searchterm=thinkpad
The FSF is moving their database over to h-node (see: http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw - the section on further hardware resources). Basically with the wide amount of hardware it was becoming too difficult to catalog all the hardware on the FSF site. H-node is sort of new but very promising and since it is wiki-style where users submit their own hardware it will scale a lot better then one single guy at the FSF having to input all the info.
On Thu, 11 Aug 2011 12:12:11 -0500
"Luis A. Guzman Garcia" <name at domain> wrote:
> > trisquel distro has no menu for hardware drivers. I don't know how to do
> > it
> > and feel bad asking for help on here with installing a non free driver.
>
> In short words, you can't, i mean even if you try.
> AFAIK the deblob scripts from Linux-libre that are run over the trisquel's
> kernel prevent non free firmware or drivers to be enabled.
Yes, the deblob script of linux-libre prevent proprietary firmware
drivers of being loaded at all, even if they are in place on your hard
disk. This is not a perfect solution and it has been discussed at the
linux-libre list AFAIK. They are still looking for another way to do
the deblobbing which allows loading of proprietary firmware.
So option 1 - installing Trisquel with proprietary firmware - is
not possible. I agree that installing Ubuntu is the last resort before
installing a complete proprietary system. So I would suggest another
option: Install Debian. Since Debian 6.0 their kernel is regarded as
free as linux-libre by the FSF, if I interpret [1] correctly. As long
as you don't add the non-free section in your sources.list you are
almost as free as with FSDG distros like Trisquel, disregarding
some small differences between FSDG and DFSG. If you have to use the
proprietary firmware you either can a) add non-free to sources.list or
b) download the driver form Debians non-free package repo and install it
manually. I would choose option b) since adding non-free is a bad idea
and may lead you to a situation where you accidentally install non-free
software.
This option is still not good, but is preferable of installing a distro
which doesn't care about free software at all.
[1]
http://www.fsf.org/news/debian-squeeze-makes-key-progress-toward-being-a-fully-free-distribution
Thanks a lot. I don't like that they block you from installing this. Freedom is important but it shouldn't be forced on people like this. There's been enough totalitarianism in the name of freedom already. Maybe I check out Debian:-) Thanks
El vie, 12-08-2011 a las 18:51 +0200, Henry Jensen escribió:
> They are still looking for another way to do
> the deblobbing which allows loading of proprietary firmware.
Why would the Linux-libre possible want that as an option?
--
Luis A. Guzmán García
¡Se Libre! -- http://fsfla.org/selibre
The Hardware Database Project-- http://www.h-node.com
Distribuciones libres de GNU/Linux -- http://ur1.ca/3e8gu
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Probably for situations like this one, where someone wants to run a fully free system, but can't because something doesn't work. It's better than installing something entirely proprietary.
On Sat, 13 Aug 2011 06:35:12 +0200 (CEST), name at domain wrote:
> Probably for situations like this one, where someone wants to run a
fully
> free system, but can't because something doesn't work. It's better than
> installing something entirely proprietary.
Then you might wanna avoid the vendor that supplies those devices instead
of getting into the dilemma.
Free Software might remain free as in freedom and free from non-free
subjugating features.
That's why i see no point of giving a step backwards software freedom.
--
Luis A. Guzmán García
http://ark.switnet.org
¡Se Libre! -- http://fsfla.org/selibre/
The Hardware Database Project -- http://www.h-node.com
Distribuciones libres de GNU/Linux -- http://ur1.ca/3e8gu
Linux-libre does *not* prevent binary blobs from loading. I have already compiled a driver from its source (once the linux-headers and the development tools installed, it was just a 'sudo make' and a 'sudo make install'). Not that I am proud of...
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I wondered why when I did a mini PCIe card swap before the card didn't work. Is this a common thing for Lenovo to do with their systems? If so I'll be adding them to Toshiba and Sony as companies I never do business with then.
I don't really know about Lenovo, but I bought a replacement mini PCIe wireless card for my laptop (an Asus EeePC 1000), and it worked right out of the box when I installed it. I tried to make a topic about it a while back, but it was automatically flagged as spam.
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Sideways: An other alternative for wireless internet (Not use wireless, switch to Ubuntu and install the proprietary drivers or throw the computer away? I wonder about your views on this...) is to set up a network at home or at the office simply by using the domestic electrical wiring. It works well and is faster and safer.
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Wouldn't that technically mean not to use wireless? You would still have to connect to the internet by using an ethernet port on the notebook ;)
Other than that, it's a cool way around the basic problem, I've seen such devices advertised once.
you have to be joking. I am working on a laptop. What's the point of not using a PC if you need cables to use it?? This entire discussion is starting to get on my nerves.
Unfortunately this forum does not have the functionality to close a thread once the person who started it considers his question answered. I will say it therefor: my question has been answered. Thank you.I won't participate in this any longer.