On Fri, Feb 13, 2026 at 10:17:53AM +0000, Holger Levsen wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 13, 2026 at 10:12:57AM +0000, Holger Levsen wrote:
> > I own a framework 13 myself and this has a non-free firmware ("bios"), so
> > no,
> > you cannot install a libre system on it without lieing to yourself. And
> > then,
> > most usbc powersupplies have a non-free firmwares too, and most keyboards,
> > mice, external displays as well. oh, and all the SSDs run nonfree firmwares
> > as
> > well, harddrives too. (and yes, some wlan adapters too!)
>
> this is complicated stuff, so I forgot one important detail:
>
> the AMD Ryzen CPU in our libre laptop is booted by a small ARM CPU, which then
> provides the non-free firmware to the AMD CPU, which noone except AMD can
> legally
> and practically change. And of course the ARM CPU also has nonfree firmware
> itself.
excuse me, but there is more: the graphic cards runs non-free blobs too,
as does the audio hw, and bluetooth, the stack has more layers than tcp/ip,
and granted, thats all hw which is not 100% needed, and surely you don't really
need to use the battery, running blobs, on a laptop neither.
but: the memory on your computer is initialised using non-free blobs as well
and good luck running your libre computer without memory.
and now I will really rest my case. happy hacking!
--
cheers,
Holger
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Covid. Changing hearts and minds since 2019. And everything else. (@1goodtern)
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