On Wed, 2015-09-09 at 22:48 +0300, Vladimir wrote: > At supported hardware list page, there are only ten router models > right now: > > 1) Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH ; 2) Buffalo WHR-HP-G300NH ; 3) Netgear > WNR2200 ; 4) Netgear WNDR3800 ; 5) TP-Link TL-MR3020 v1 ; 6) TP-Link > TL-WR741ND ; 7) TP-Link TL-WR841ND ; 8) TP-Link TL-WR1043ND ; 9) > ThinkPenguin TPE-NWIFIROUTER2 ; 10) Qi-Hardware Ben Nanonote > > However, at your librecmc-config file there are a lot more targets > available, such as TP-Link TL-WR2543 . And at your > snapshots/v1.3.1/ar71xx/generic/ directory there are many successful > builds available, such as for: Buffalo WLAE-AG300N , Cisco-Linksys > WRT400N , Buffalo WZR-450HP2
While these targets "build", they are not officially supported by the libreCMC project. In order to be classified as being officially supported, the following conditions need to be met : * The target can't require any non-free blobs. * The target needs to be formally tested. * u-boot or another bootloader needs to be flashed and verified that it does not contain any blobs. Hint: some switches may need blobs that are loaded by u-boot. * The target must be flashable from stock firmware without any elaborate hacks. * Most, if not all, versions of a device line must be supported (to avoid confusion). * The target must work in a reliable fashion. Hint: most embedded devices don't work well or the quality is poor. Yes, I should have added a subtarget for unsupported platforms, but I did not. > Please update your "supported hardware" page: if more people will > know > that their devices are compatible with LibreCMC (even if its hard to > install it on some of devices without specia[l] tools like flashers) > then > LibreCMC will receive more users and gain popularity! > Just because a device appears on a hardware list, supported or otherwise, it will not increase the popularity of the project. The goal of libreCMC is to provide a fully free embedded OS (GNU/Linux or otherwise), not to be part of a larger "popularity" contest. If libreCMC becomes popular, that is great, but the project's goal does not include popularity. Right now, the last thing the libreCMC project needs is to [artificially] grow out its user base. The focus of the project, right now, is to clean things up and make the OS/distro [1] smaller. libreCMC will gain popularity over time because it is fully free and because of its technological merits, not the list of shitty hardware that it [won't] support[s]. Sure, it would be nice to add a boat load of supported hardware and software, but what would the cost be? Most embedded devices that upstream supports don't work well (in addition to having freedom issues). By supporting hardware without extensive testing, this sets the libreCMC project up for being seen as having poor quality standards or being "buggy". People will blame their software well before they blame the hardware they are using (even with proof). The same goes for adding features, if it does not work well, it won't be added or supported. > Also, its better to set up this "supported hardware" page in table > style, similar to what coreboot project wiki has. That will allow to > provide much more important information, such as supported revisions > of boards of some router models. (each router model could have > several board revisions, and it could be that not all of them are > compatible) Our current model of vendor lists with supported device lines is more optimal. libreCMC only supports device lines where all targets are supported (there may be an exception to this rule, but it is made clear). Yes, the documentation on the libreCMC wiki needs to be cleaned up, but I don't agree with the proposed model. [1] libreCMC is exploring other OS models that don't use the linux[ -libre] kernel and would no longer be classified as a GNU/Linux[-libre] "distro". -- Robert Call (Bob) b...@librecmc.org https://librecmc.org _______________________________________________ Librecmc-dev mailing list Librecmc-dev@lists.librecmc.org https://librecmc.org/mailman/listinfo/librecmc-dev
