I'm dual-booting it with Debian Jessie at the moment- Jessie for personal
use, Belenos for school/work purposes.
Well, excluding the euphoric sensation one gets from hating the status quo
(which may very well be a popular cause of SystemD hatred...), the following
seem to be the major issues:
1. As you've already mentioned, it doesn't follow the Unix philosophy. A
side-effect of this is that its
It doesn't avoid sending out your IP address per se- it has to, in order to
allow the reply to be sent to you- but 'anonymizes' it through two
techniques. Firstly, the tunnels serve to introduce distance between the
sender and the receiver of a packet, preventing a single user from watching
The reason I2P is more safe and ethical than Tor for torrenting is the fact
that it was built for that purpose- unlike Tor, which is primarily designed
for standard client/server systems (with clearnet access being part of the
system, unlike for I2P). They do share parts of their
Tell us how it goes!
There doesn't seem to be a lot on the other two programs, but it seems like
all should be clear. Chip-mconfigs look like it should be removable; it's
only an openbox/tint2 theme manager tool, which I don't think matters for
XFCE. As for xserver-xorg-video-armsoc, no source or license is
This is promising! I'm pretty sure you're right that the dts files are false
positives, and the precomputed constants seem to have good reason to be there
too. Hopefully that means the kernel shouldn't be too much more work... which
would just leave the other two programs you listed
Sorry for the late reply!
I'm not entirely sure as to how the scripts work, honestly. I've had a look
through them, and there's a long list of files in the deblob-4.2 file: that
would seem to suggest that the blob locations are hard-coded, but it's not
proof. I've asked at the GNU
>It would be great if the indent width of comment replies were halved so that
it would take twice as long for this to happen
Seconded.
>I'm not sure exactly what the output should look like since I can't find
sample usage anywhere, but I would have expected to get a list of source code
Try running:
chmod +x deblob-*
before executing it; that makes the scripts executable and hence usable.
Admittedly, I'm not really too certain how the script works. I'll get a copy
and see what can be done as soon as possible, but my insights probably won't
be anything you haven't already
OK- so it's not violating the GPL because Linux only treats it as a data
file, and the execution happens independently of the kernel? That's rather
inconvenient: as you say, being legal makes them no less evil.
>If I understand correctly, the Debian kernel can't replace the NTC kernel
because it does not have NAND support, but the NTC kernel's NAND support is
not proprietary; it's other drivers/firmware that make the NTC kernel
non-free.
That's how I understood it. I haven't been able to find any
OK- I've looked into this a little further. Debian's default kernel would
definitely not work, because it's missing support for the NAND memory which
is integrated into the chip. This can be dealt with in two ways:
*Re-compile the kernel with NAND support: it's possible- the Chip uses free
I don't think it would- although a libre equivalent must exist somewhere,
since the EOMA68-A20 card has the option of Debian. I'll have a look for it
and see if it isn't possible to just use that.
As for nonfree kernel modules, I don't know about those either. Perhaps it's
just the people
Nice! Thanks for the links- that's a far better way to do it.
Unfortunately, it seems like the kernel may be some trouble. Looking at the
repository here, it turns out the base is not Debian's Kernel but rather the
SoC-friendly linux-sunxi; which, quite incredibly, includes the firmware and
OK, if you're looking at this, please don't worry about what I just posted-
if the bootloader isn't proprietary, it should be possible to just uninstall
the problem firmware and have a free device. I'll look into this as soon as I
can, and (hopefully) that should lead to a much shorter
OK, the person who got Debian Stretch running on the Chip (Pablo Rath) has
very kindly written me a list of the step involved in doing so. I've copied
it below (it's on the arm-netbook mailing list as well), but has the caveat
that boot needs to be from USB, not NAND, so if there's only one
*Todd :)
You're absolutely right, Heather. Unfortunately, the track record of the
corporation isn't promising.
Please, Purism, consider the modem isolation/management and processor freedom
of your phone. The battle for libre, trustworthy portable telephony device
has been long and hard,
With a USB cellular modem (I don't think I made it clear that it was USB-
sorry for the confusion), the use of USB offers excellent modem isolation and
verifiable powering down. Also, the ability to remove the adapter provides
further piece of mind- and, by putting it into another machine,
I'm not sure of any freedom problems, to be honest- the version the Chip uses
is forked from the main U-Boot repository, and doesn't include USB boot
functionality, but that's not a violation of freedom.
I largely agree- with Torvald's refusal to add legal weight to his license,
the significance of copyleft in this case seems to be rather limited
(although I'm no copyright lawyer- please correct any misconceptions
displayed here).
On the other hand, using Linux may at least lead/bind
Thanks for the description- I think I too might purchase one once it's clear
how to liberate it (and I can find a touch GUI to call/SMS through a cellular
modem), so it'd be interesting to see what can be done.
The best "reference" I can find at the moment is at
>When is the Libre Tea Computer Card available in Europe at Minifree,
Technoethical and Vikings?
As clinsc said, you'd have to contact the respective vendors to know for
sure, but I'd be fairly certain none of them are going to offer the cards.
Unlike Librebooted Thinkpads, where you can
What about holding "shift":
https://askubuntu.com/questions/82140/how-can-i-boot-with-an-older-kernel-version?
I'm not quite sure I can be of any help here, but here we go...
>One of them I downloaded was VLC media player, but DVD's won't load,
For this, you need some extra software called libdvdcss:
https://www.videolan.org/developers/libdvdcss.html. Unfortunately, it's not
possible to install it
Thank you!
There's no real reason to "replace" the Raspberry Pi. The major technical
obstacles to freeing it, I believe, have already been surpassed, meaning some
fleshing-out work is all that remains:
https://github.com/christinaa/rpi-open-firmware. Rather than start from
scratch, it would make more
There's no real reason to "replace" the Raspberry Pi. The major technical
obstacles to freeing it, I believe, have already been surpassed, meaning some
fleshing-out work is all that remains:
https://github.com/christinaa/rpi-open-firmware. Rather than start from
scratch, it would make more
>Can you say, what it is for?
https://secure.raptorcs.com/content/TL2B01/intro.html
Can it be a desktop computer? Would it be having a truck act as a car?
It's a high-end desktop and server board, so I'm pretty sure it'd be useful
primarily those with computing-power-intensive needs. As such,
>i would say your best bet is for now is a zipit for £20 and if you are
willing to do some soldering, a usb hub,usb power exteral power, usb wifi and
you have free software pda.
Thank you for this! If I may ask though, where can you get a Zipit for £20?
To elaborate, the particular post appears to be here:
http://lists.phcomp.co.uk/pipermail/arm-netbook/2017-July/014340.html. It
also suggests Debian Stretch runs fine on the PocketChip (although would need
to be flashed to RAM to become the default OS)- so it definitely runs fine
without
I'm almost certain it would disable the GPU without causing other problems.
On the other hand, that's just a (somewhat informed) guess based on what I've
read about the Pandora; it's not yet confirmed.
Unfortunately, I'm not sure this works- though my knowledge is limited, and I
could very well be wrong (I hope I am). The issue is that the modem is a
separate computer- it loads independently of the main device, and has its own
flash. As such, removing the ability to use telephony from the
>The Ben Nanonote looks ideal, but I can't actually find a >source from which
to buy one. The wiki says that as of 2015 >only IDA Systems sells it, and it
appears that now they don't >sell it either.
Indeed- the domain has changed hands at some point, and the original owner
appears to have
Unfortunately, the installation instructions reveal on re-reading that there
isn't a replacement. Step 5 of
https://fuchsia.googlesource.com/magenta/+/master/docs/targets/rpi3.md#Installing
requires downloading a 'bootcode.bin' file from the Raspberry Pi firmware
repository on GitHub and
If so, that would be amazing! Let's hope this turns out to be what is needed.
It looks promising! Unfortunately, though, the kernel isn't the problem (as
far as I know, anyway) that prevents the RPi from even booting with 100% free
software: it's the boot-up firmware that has to be loaded before the kernel.
This is beyond the OS's control, and as far as I can tell is
For the first error, the J needs to come before the f: tar looks at whatever
follows the f to find the file to extract, and in the above case that
happened to be 'J'.
For the second error, is there already a folder called
'/opt/tor-browser_en-US'? I'm not entirely sure this is the problem,
The Zipit is apparently similar to the Pandora:
https://www.libreplanet.org/wiki/Group:Hardware/Freest#Zipit_Z2.
*If* you're making a call, the landline might- but that's not the point.
If an individual leaves the house with their cell phone and goes on an
outing, the amount of information they have provided to their local
telecommunications company is staggering. Firstly, the location metadata. Not
Personally, I'd like some sort of (low-power) portable server which, as for
you, uses a non-geolocalizing network. If it were part of a small PDA-like
device with an attached light and e-ink screen... that would be a dream come
true. Every computing need I have a laptop cannot satisfy-
The Pandora can definitely be run with only free software and offer the
functionality you desire- OnPon4 and JadedCtrl both did (do?) this. The GPU
and wireless card both can't be used, although you can do graphics on the CPU
and use a USB wifi adapter to get around these- the internal
As Magic Banana said, Stallman's concern is more to do with the network
structure than the freedom of the device itself- and indeed, a fully free
phone is (theoretically) possible.
In regards to OsmocomBB, I'm honestly not sure how complete or active it is
either. I suspect it is in a
It doesn't take the Chinese government to do that- the NSA can turn most cell
phones into such surveillance devices (and probably botnets if they wanted
to) pretty easily already. The Chinese government, I suspect, wouldn't even
need to bother with loading the malware remotely.
Apart from
>100% end-to-end content encryption that prevents the provider from
decrypting content
I'm not sure what you mean by 'end-to-end', but the mail provider can't offer
sender-to-receiver encryption. E-mail simply wasn't built with that in mind,
and (unless all communicating parties use PGP in
Strictly speaking, the neutralized ME is no freer than an unneutralized one-
it just removes the 'optional' 99% which presents the most security risk (and
the non-AMT-using amongst us never needed anyway).
That said, from a privacy/security perspective, a neutralized ME solves the
major
If you're using the live system, just to clarify, LXQt disappears as soon as
you shut down/reboot- you have to install the OS to something before you can
keep your mini version across changes.
That said, the username is trisquel and the password, if I guess correctly,
completely empty
If you were running Ubuntu 16.04 and added the Trisquel repositories, this is
entirely expected. As an unofficial version of Ubuntu, with an explicit goal
to avoid endorsing the differing values of that project, Trisquel is both
legally and morally required to remove references to the OS
It's only one small leap for computer freedom, but it's a long-awaited one-
the end of Adobe Flash:
https://tech.slashdot.org/story/17/07/25/1615220/adobe-announces-that-in-2020-flash-player-will-reach-its-end-of-life-in-light-of-newer-technologies.
To quote Adobe (in corporatese):
"Today,
If you can afford to use an older (still stable) version, there's one in the
Trisquel repositories: http://packages.trisquel.info/belenos/linphone.
Just to check, are you in the same folder as the 'flashrom' directory (i.e.
does is that directory listed if you run ls)? Also, does the
flashrom_lenovobios_sst command have execute permissions enabled?
This actually sounds like a feasible idea- with a data adapter of some sort,
it seems like it could be possible to use it as a 'phone' when necessary.
That does work- and, of course, is easy to disable and enable as necessary.
However, I suppose the original question should probably have been: does the
main CPU have control over power to the modem, or is it confined to simply
asking "could you please turn off?" and hoping the modem is
Well, it turns out you can at least 'deactivate' the modem when the phone is
off: http://www.instructables.com/id/Faraday-Cage-Phone-Pouch/. It doesn't
really solve the major freedom problems related to mobile phones, but it was
too beautiful a tactic to not post.
I've only ever used QEMU and Wine, and only with the vaguest idea of how they
work at that, but I suspect there are good reasons to believe no proprietary
software would be required.
Wine, standing for Wine Is Not an Emulator, isn't an emulator per se- it's a
compatibility layer. As such,
Thanks for the link! Unfortunately, I don't think any of the answers their
directly address modem deactivation. I've registered and posted about it
there anyway, which is probably the more logical place :).
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