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GNU Linux-libre, Free as in Freedo

Linux, the kernel developed and distributed by Linus Torvalds et al, contains non-Free Software, i.e., software that does not respect your essential freedoms, and it induces you to install additional non-Free Software that it doesn't contain. Even after allegedly moving all firmware to a separate project as of release 4.14, Linux so-called "sources" published by Mr Torvalds still contain non-Free firmware disguised as source code.

Few people realize Linux is not free. The same thing happens to Stux, this cute penguin.

GNU Linux-libre is a project to maintain and publish 100% Free distributions of Linux, suitable for use in Free System Distributions, removing software that is included without source code, with obfuscated or obscured source code, under non-Free Software licenses, that do not permit you to change the software so that it does what you wish, and that induces or requires you to install additional pieces of non-Free Software.

Our releases can be easily adopted by 100% Free GNU/Linux distros, as well as by their users, by distros that want to enable their users to choose freedom, and by users of those that don't.

Although UTUTO-e was the first GNU/Linux distro to remove non-Free portions of Linux, GNU Linux-libre follows and improves on the practices established by gNewSense and BLAG.

Free Software Foundation Latin America (FSFLA) joined the (then non-GNU) Linux-libre project as part of its campaign dubbed "¡Sé Libre!", to encourage and enable users to go beyond using some Free Software, and rather seek and choose freedom.

Downloads

• releases: source tarballs tracking upstream releases, from which we removed blobs and code that induces users to install non-Free Software.
• git repository <git://linux-libre.fsfla.org/releases.git> carries tagged releases, scripts, and logs, in a far more compact form than the above.
• SIGNING-KEY: The GnuPG keys used to sign source tarballs, patches, Freed-ora packages, and the keys that sign other repositories. For each repository R, there's a corresponding SIGNING-KEY.R in the download tree.
• Freesh: .debs for various architectures of the latest sources available. Read more.
• RPM Freedom: .rpms for Fedora, CentOS, RHEL and its derivatives. Read more.
• libeRTy: .debs compiled with the PREEMPT_RT patch for realtime operation on 32- and 64-bit x86 CPUs. Read more.
• freed-ora: .rpms packages tracking Fedora kernel builds. Read more.
• Mirrors: The repositories above are available from our network of mirrors too.
• Other binaries: There are other distributions of GNU Linux-libre binaries from third parties. We maintain a list.

News

2024-09-15 - GNU Linux-libre 6.11-gnu

Cleaned up amdgpu isp, tn40, rtl8192du, cs40l50, rt1320, pcie-rcar-gen4, and new AArch64 devicetree files. Updated cleaning up of amdgpu, adreno, vgxy61, atomisp, btnxpuart, prueth, tas2781. Added nowait-nowarn version of the firmware loading/rejecting primitives. Added detection of firmware-loading primitives in Rust.

2024-07-14 - GNU Linux-libre 6.10-gnu

Intel i915, rtl8xxxu, QCAI sahara cleaning up adjusted over moved source code upstream. New files in Adreno, Intel IPU3, and PRUEth drivers had blob references cleaned up. New drivers for Panthor, Intel IPU6, PRUEth SR1, rtw8703b, tps23881, air_en8811h, Intel ISH HID, and pcm6240 had blob names and requests removed. Prism2.5/3 USB driver is no longer cleaned up, because it was removed upstream. Adjusted cleaning up of blob name in qla2xxx driver due to formatting change. Cleaned up various new AArch64 devicetree files. Erratum a (6.10-gnua) fixes errors triggered by upstream changes, in cleaned-up bits we hadn't modified, namely a qla2xxx Kconfig error, and a couple of i915 warnings that may be turned into errors.

2024-05-12 - GNU Linux-libre 6.9-gnu

Cleaned up new ptp_fc3 driver. Updated cleaning up of amdgpu, ath12k, adreno, btusb, r8169, and of various AArch64 devicetree files. Adjusted for changes around an hex-encoded sourceless blob. Fixed i915 initialization freeze, backports expected shortly.

2024-03-10 - GNU Linux-libre 6.8-gnu

Dropped cleaning of upstream-removed drivers atmel, hermes, orinoco_usb, libertas_cs, zd1201. Cleaned up drivers for Intel qat_420xx, Imagination PowerVR, Intel Xe, Chips&Media Wave5, Intel VSC, Aquantia PHY, Realtek rtw8922a. Updated cleaning up of coda. Cleaned up blob names in new ARM and AArch64 devicetree files. Adjusted wording in .deb packaging. Attempted fix for i915.

2024-01-29 - Mirror in Australia

Thanks to DiffieHellman for contributing mirror in Australia.

2024-01-07 - GNU Linux-libre 6.7-gnu (To Scale)

Dropped cops localtalk and rtl8192u wifi cleaning up, removed upstream. (Several other blobs remain there, alas.) Adjusted amdgpu, nouveau, adreno, mwifiex, mt7988, ath11k, avs, btqca. Cleaned up aarch64 dts files's mentions of blobs. Cleaned up new mt7925, tps6598x, aw87390, aw88399 drivers. Reverted excessive but harmless cleaning up in xhci-pci, rtl8xxxu, and rtw8822b, that accidentally made to some past releases.

2023-12-11 - GNU Linux-libre 6.6.6-gnu (Bedevilled)

Freedo poses in a devil costume with GNU horns to celebrate 6.6.6-gnu.

GNU shines above all, whether the kernel is BSD or Linux.

This stable release is Free Software as usual and expected. The codename is about the costume, and the funny cognitive dissonance that might arise by citing a BSD icon in the context of GNU Linux-libre and GNU.

2023-10-30 - GNU Linux-libre 6.6-gnu

Adjusted for upstream changes to x86 microcode loaders, Intel avs, -Werror, and rpm spec file changes. Cleaned up drivers for TI gigabit RU ethernet, MediaTek 792x wifi, Cirrus Logic cs42l43 mfd, cs35l56 HD-audio side codec, aw88261 SoC audio. Cleaned new blob names Qualcomm AArch64 dts files, in ivpu accelerator, in bluetooth drivers, in x86 touchscreen driver, and in Qualcomm Venus V4L2 video encoder/decoder.

2023-09-01 - New mirror at repo.jing.rocks

Thanks to Jing for the new mirror in Japan!

2023-08-27 - GNU Linux-libre 6.5-gnu

Reworked cleaning up of iwlwifi to reflect revamp of blob names in it. Adjusted the cleaning scripts to account for cleaned up ARM dts files' moving in the "source" tree. Cleaned up the usual assortment of new dts files that declare dependencies on binary blobs. Updated cleaning up of amdgpu, adreno, rtl8xxxu, and x86 touchscreen, and of atomisp docs. Cleaned up new driver for rtw8851b, and for tas2781 speaker.

2023-06-25 - GNU Linux-libre 6.4-gnu (When I'm Six Point Four)

Adjusted cleaning up of x86 microcode docs, x86 Android tablets and QAT crypto drivers to account for moved files in the source tree. Dropped cleaning up of vs6624 driver, removed upstream. Neutered op-tee's, rtl8710b's and qcom's Cloud AI blob loaders. Cleaned up bluetooth nxp protocol support. Cleaned up blob names in qcom aarch64 dts files.

2023-04-23 - GNU Linux-libre 6.3-gnu

Cleaned up new drivers for ath12k, aw88395, and peb2466, and new devicetree files for aarch64 qcom devices. Adjusted for changes amdgpu, xhci-rcar, qcom-q6v5-pas; for undeprecation of sp8870, av7110, and Budget dvb cards; for the upstream removal of mga, r128, tm6000, cpia2, and r8188eu; for reformatting of documentation files; for drivers moved into accelerator/; for wording changes in build scripts; for separate precompiled BPF files. Ported the fix for the deblobbed i915 driver.

2023-04-21 - Freedo joins the Fediverse

Jason Self and I agreed to set up a Freedo profile in the Fediverse, for GNU Linux-libre announcements and related topics.

2023-03-12 - i915 deblobbing bug fix

Initializing the i915 driver when using certain Intel i915 GPU variants appears to freeze the system: there is an infinite loop of disarmed (unsatisfiable) blob loading attempts in 6.1.-gnu (up to 6.1.18-gnu) and 6.2.-gnu (up to 6.2.5-gnu). See this thread for a workaround (that bypasses the loop but disables GPU acceleration), to confirm whether your GPU is affected, and for a patch, that fixes the problem without disabling GPU acceleration. The fix is slated for inclusion in upcoming releases, presumably 6.1.19-gnu, 6.2.6-gnu, and 6.3-rc*-gnu.

2023-03-01 - Free Software Supporter

The FSF is thankful for fifteen years of maintenance work, which provides the community with a reliable (and reliably free!) version of the kernel Linux for the GNU operating system. Such work by the Linux-libre maintainers helps to power all of the freedom-respecting distros, and thereby helps those of us who aim to drive our hardware with fully free software.
-- FSF

We thank the FSF for the server, continued support and for the kind mention.

2023-02-25 - Wrapping up the 15y anniversary celebration week

FSFLA publishes an announcement wrapping up the week of celebration of the 15th anniversary of the GNU Linux-libre project, as we make a black-and-white commemorative wallpaper (svg) with classic Freedo dressed up for the party (svg).

2023-02-19 - GNU Linux-libre 6.2-gnu (la quinceañera)

Cleaned up new blob requests in nouveau gpu. Adjusted cleaning up of radeon gpu, mt7921 wifi. Cleaned up blob in vgxy61 driver. Disabled blob requests in drivers for mt7622, mt7996 wifi and bcm4377 bluetooth, and blob names in several new aarch64 dts files. Updated blob names in too many drivers to mention. Dropped s5k4ecgx cleaning up, the driver was removed. Dropped commented-out notes and code about not cleaning up pcmcia configuration file requests and SOF free firmware requests.

2022-12-17 - Freed-ora is history

With the EOLing of Fedora 35, Freed-ora has become inactive, after almost 15 years building freed versions of Fedora's blob-ridden kernels. For Fedora users interested in software freedom, we now recommend RPMFreedom kernel builds. Thanks to the various supporters of this subproject over the years.

2022-12-11 - GNU Linux-libre 6.1-gnu

Adjusted deblobbing of amdgpu, i915, brcmfmac, r8188eu, rtw8852c, Intel ACPI sound. Adjusted deblobbing of deprecated drivers for tm6000 TV cards, cpia2 v4l, and sp8870, av7110, and budget media cards. Cleaned up new rtw8852b driver, and blob names from multiple new Qualcomm and MediaTek AArch64 dts files.

2022-10-02 - GNU Linux-libre 6.0-gnu (-ETOOSIXY)

Disabled blob requests in UCSI interface driver for STM32G0, and in CS35L41 HD-audio driver side codec. Moved MediaTek MT76 mcu blob request disabling to the refactored connac library. Cleaned up blob names from multiple new Qualcomm and MediaTek AArch64 dts files. Updated cleaning up of blob names and requests in AMDGPU, Adreno, Tegra VIC, Netronome NFP, and Habanalabs Gaudi2 drivers. Dropped cleaning up of VXGE driver removed upstream.

2022-07-31 - GNU Linux-libre 5.19-gnu (Uhura)

Dropped cleaning up of ATM Ambassador driver dropped upstream. Moved HDCP helper and Mellanox Core deblobbing under their own newly-introduced kconfig tags. Cleaned up new pureLiFi X/XL/XC and TI AMx3 Wkup-M3 IPC drivers. Adjusted cleaning up of Silicon Labs WFX, moved out of staging. Updated cleaning up of AMD amdgpu, Qualcomm WCNSS Peripheral Image Loader, Realtek Bluetooth, Mellanox Spectrum, Marvell WiFi-Ex, and Intel AVS, IFS and ipu3-imgu drivers, and of Qualcomm AArch64 devicetree files. Accept new Sound Open Firmware naming conventions.

2022-05-22 - GNU Linux-libre 5.18-gnu

Cleaned up new drivers for MIPI DBI panels, Amphion VPU, MediaTek MT7986 WMAC, Mediatek MT7921U (USB) and Realtek 8852a and 8852c WiFi, Intel AVS, and Texas Instruments TAS5805M speaker amplifier, and new DTS files for various Qualcomm AArch64 SoCs. Updated cleaning up of drivers for AMD GPUs, MediaTek MT7915 and Silicon Labs WF200+ WiFi, Mellanox Spectrum wired ethernet, Realtek rtw8852c, Qualcomm Q6V5 and Wolfson ADSP, MediaTek HCI UART. Adjusted cleaning up for code movement in various media drivers, MHI bus, and AMD GPUs.

2022-03-21 - GNU Linux-libre 5.17-gnu

Updated cleaning up logic for tegra, bnx2x, mt7915, btmtk, mscc, and added logic for new dts files for various new aarch64 SoCs, and for a new driver for x86 android tablets.

2022-01-09 - GNU Linux-libre 5.16-gnu

Cleaned up mt7921s and rtw89 (8852a) wifi, ili210x touchscreen, i.MX dsp rproc, qdsp6 audio, and aarch64 qcom. Added firmware_reject_builtin, unified reject_firmware and reject_firmware_nowarn cleanup shell functions.

2021-10-31 - GNU Linux-libre 5.15-gnu

Added log message on successful completion of cleaning-up. Fixed mkspec packaging. Adjusted snap packaging. Fixed some firmware.h warnings. Backported these to active stable branches, already present in last week's releases. Allowed warnings introduced by cleaning up (format-extra-args, comments, unused-function and unused-variable) even with newly-introduced configuration that enables -Werror. Updated cleaning up of adreno, btusb, btintel, brcmfmac, aarch64 qcom. Dropped cleaning up of drivers prism54 (removed) and rtl8188eu (replaced by r8188eu). Added cleaning up of gehc-achc.

2021-10-15 - gnulinux.si -> flossmirror.org

Jan Prunk is replacing the gnulinux.si mirror with linux-libre.flossmirror.org. Thanks to Jan and all other mirror maintainers.

2021-09-27 - Removing obsolete releases and repositories

We celebrate the 38th anniversary of the GNU Project and of the Free Software movement by removing past releases found to contain nonfree software. Their cleaning-up scripts remain available from the git repository, and from releases/old/gen6.

We're also removing long-obsolete repositories that still contained builds of those and of even earlier releases. Instead of freed-ebian and planet, we recommend Freesh. Instead of rt, we recommend LibeRTy. A freeloong replacement might be added to Freesh if there's enough demand.

Freed-ora repositories for recent Fedora releases remain available, but we're still looking for new maintainers for Freed-ora.

2021-08-30 - GNU Linux-libre 5.14-gnu, and -gnu1 respins

Cleaned up long-missed vs6624 sensors and powerpc 8xx micropatches. Improved x86 microcode-related cleaning-up. (Respun 5.13, 5.10, 5.4, 4.19, 4.14, 4.9, and 4.4 as -gnu1 with these and other backports.) Cleaned up new eftc driver, and new qcom arm64 variant. Cleaned up new blob names in btrtl, amdgpu, and adreno. Adjusted for in-tree movement of i915, sp8870 and other av7110 cards, r8188eu, btqca drivers, and for change to the blob-loading primitive used by xhci-pci-renesas.

2021-06-27 - GNU Linux-libre 5.13-gnu

Cyclades and isicom tty, and i2400m wimax drivers, that we used to clean up, were removed upstream. Comedi drivers were moved in the tree, and cleaning up was adjusted to match. Cleaning up logic of the btusb driver needed some updating, and amdgpu, i915 csr, r8152 usb, mhi bus, x86 touchscreen and qualcomm arm64 drivers needed updating on account on new blob names.

2021-06-11 - #gnu-linux-libre on Libera.Chat

GNU has moved to Libera.Chat, so we are taking the opportunity to transition to the #gnu namespace, since we've been a GNU subproject since 2012, and we didn't feel we belong under the #linux prefix. Find us on #gnu-linux-libre in the Libera.Chat IRC network.

2021-04-25 - GNU Linux-libre 5.12-gnu (Freedo misses Tasha)

Cleaned up newly-added drivers for OcteonTX2 crypto, MXL692 dvb, MT7921E wifi, and BCM VK accelerators; Intel ICE docs, and Qualcomm AArch64 DTS variants. Adjusted cleaning up of Allegro-DVT. Updated blob names in Adreno GPU, and in x86 touchscreen variants.

2021-02-14 - GNU Linux-libre 5.11-gnu (ilovefs)

Cleaned up drivers for qat_4xxx crypto, lt9611uxc dsi/hdmi bridge, ccs/smia++ sensor, ath11k_pci, nxp audio transceiver, mhi pci controller. Moved wimax cleaning up. Adjusted wakeup m3 rproc, idt82p33 ptp clock, and qualcomm arm64 deblobbing. Handled new blob versions in amdgpu, btqca, btrtl, btusb, i915 csr.

2020-12-13 - GNU Linux-libre 5.10-gnu

Support the new firmware-loading primitive introduced upstream; identify and check for corresponding sources of precompiled BPF code added to "sources"; cope with new blobs and tree rearrangement in amdgpu; disable new blobs in Intel i915 video and bluetooth hci drivers; disable blob loading in newly-added drivers for Cadence MHDP8546 DPI/DP bridge and for Marvell Prestera switch; cope with rearrangements in IMX SDMA, MLXSW Spectrum, Intel iwlwifi, Qualcomm ath11k, Broadcom STM DPFE memory and Intel Haswell and HiFi2 sound; disable new blobs in qcom aarch64 ports.

2020-10-11 - GNU Linux-libre 5.9-gnu

Cleaned up drivers for rtw8821c WiFi and for MediaTek mt8183 SoC. Adjusted cleaning up of Habanalabs and Wilc1000 code, and Fore200e and Netronome documentation, moved in the tree. Updated cleaning up of amdgpu, mt7615, i915 CSR, Mellanox mlxsw (Spectrum3), r8169 (rtl8125b-2), and x86 touchscreen.

2020-08-02 - GNU Linux-libre 5.8-gnu

Cleaned up drivers for Atom ISP Video, MediaTek 7663 USB and 7915 PCIe and Realtek 8723DE WiFi, Renesas PCI xHCI, HabanaLabs Gaudi coprocessor, Enhanced Asynchronous Sample Rate Converter, Maxim Integrated MAX98390 Speaker Aimplifier, Microsemi ZL38060 Connected Home Audio Processor, and I2C EEPROM Slave. Adjusted cleaning up of drivers for Adreno GPU, HabanaLabs Goya coprocessor, x86 touchscreen, vt6656 and btbcm, and of various documentation files.

2020-05-31 - GNU Linux-libre 5.7-gnu

New GIT-based release process. Past releases also available at: <git://linux-libre.fsfla.org/releases.git>

Dropped cleaning up for i1480 uwb, driver removed upstream. Disabled blob loading in Marvell OcteonTX CPT, Mediatek MT7622 WMAC, Qualcomm IPA, Azoteq IQS62x MFD, IDT 82P33xxx PTP clock, and MHI bus. Adjustments to cope with changes in firmware loading interface, and new blob names in AMD GPU, Arm64 DTS files, Meson VDec, Realtek Bluetooth, m88ds3103 dvb frontend, Mediatek mt8173 VPU, Qualcomm Venus, Broadcom FMAC, Mediatek 7622 and 7663 wifi, and silead x86 touchscreen. Adjusted for movement of mscc phy driver (and new blob names in it) and wd719x documentation. Removed old-fashioned executable binary blobs disguised as arrays of numbers, newly-added to the i915, for use in gen7 gpus. Fixed deblob-check's selftest with dash, and enabled input-specific overriding of standard blob-matching patterns.

2020-05-20 - Build servers contributed by Joe Staton

Joe Staton donated 2 build servers to help keep the Freesh kernel builds up to date. Thank you!

2020-03-29 - GNU Linux-libre 5.6-gnu (GNU Health for all)

Disabled blob loading in AMD TEE, ATH11K, and Mediatek SCP. Adjusted cleaning up of AMD PSP, amdgpu, and nouveau.

2020-01-26 - GNU Linux-libre 5.5-gnu

Disabled blob loading in Realtek RTL815[23] USB ethernet adaptors, WFX wf200 wireless, IDT Clockmatrix and RT5677 sound codecs. Adjusted blob disabling in wilc1000, brcmstb_dpfe, r8169, iwlwifi, x86 touchscreen dmi, xhci-tegra, i915, and mlxsw spectrum.

2019-11-25 - GNU Linux-libre 5.4-gnu (Fi For GNU)

Disabled blob loading in Intel Ethernet Connection E800 Series ice driver. Adjusted deblobbing of safexcel, amdgpu, i915, i2400m, i1480u, nitrox, r8169, touchscreen_dmi, and skylake sound. Dropped deblobbing of removed netx driver. Retain executability of deblobbed scripts.

2019-09-15 - GNU Linux-libre 5.3-gnu (Freechard)

Disabled blob loading in qcom, hdcp drm, allegro-dvt, meson-vdec. Adjusted deblobbing of documentation, amdgpu, i915, netx, r8169, brcmfmac, rtl8188eu, adreno, si2157, pvrusb2, touchscreen_dmi, skylake sound.

2019-07-07 - GNU Linux-libre 5.2-gnu

Enabled loading of Sound Open Firmware files. Disabled blob loading in mt7615, rtw88, rtw8822b, rtw8822c, btmtksdio, iqs5xx, ishtp, ucsi_ccg. Adjusted deblobbing of microcode docs, ixp4xx, imx-sdma, amdgpu, nouveau, goya. Dropped deblobbing of r8822be, removed upstream.

2019-05-05 - GNU Linux-libre 5.1-gnu

Disabled blob loading in mt7603 and goya. Adjusted deblobbing of wilc1000, and updated blob names in iwlwifi, soc-acpi-intel sound, brcmfmac, mwifiex, btmrvl, btmtk, touchscreen_dmi. Dropped cleaning up of the lantiq xrx200 firmware loader, removed upstream.

2019-05-05 - Fixing Freed-ora f30 and f31 rpms

Freed-ora f30 and f31 rpms look for modules in the wrong directory. Thanks to Airwave on IRC for the report and the diagnostic. The fix is in the 5.0.12-gnu f30 build, and will be in the next f31 build.

2019-03-03 - GNU Linux-libre 5.0-gnu

Deblobbed ipu3-imgu. Updated deblobbing of admgpu, adreno, tegra, bnx2x, iwlwifi, mt76x0, qtnfmac, and Intel SOC sound (.ri and .tplg added as extensions to flag). Dropped deblobbing of removed Eicon DIVA ISDN driver.

2019-01-29 - libeRTy binaries

Jason Self has started maintaining the libeRTy apt repository which carries .debs compiled with the PREEMPT_RT patch for realtime operation on 32- and 64-bit x86 CPUs. Thanks!

2019-01-07 - Mirror in France

Thanks to cyberbits.eu for the new mirror!

2018-12-24 - GNU Linux-libre 4.20-gnu - Four.Two-Oh! Ho! Ho!

Disabled blob requests in MT76x0E, Lantiq/Intel GSWIP, and Microsemi PHY. Updated btrtl, AMD GPU, i915 CSR, PSP crypto, MT76x0U, MT76x2E, MT76x2U, qtnfmac, Qualcomm ADSP and Hexagon V5 Remoteproc, x86 touchscreen, hda ca0132, ath10k, and iwlwifi cleaning up. Dropped false positive matches for old patches.

2018-10-22 - GNU Linux-libre 4.19-gnu

Silenced some harmless compiler warnings in reject_firmware. Adjusted README adjustments. Disabled blob requests in MT76x0U and MT76x2U WiFi, MTk Bluetooth UART, Keystone and Qualcomm Hexagon Remoteproc, and Aspeed ColdFire FSI Master. Updated AMD GPU, Adreno, brcmfmac, mlxsw, Intel Skylake sound and Silead touchscreen cleaning up.

2018-08-15 - New mirrors

Mirrors in Ecuador, Romania, Sweden (also available in the Tor network), and USA East coast are now available. Thanks UTA and ESPOCH in Ecuador, Ernesto Pérez Estévez, Alin-Adrian Anton, Jonathan Sélea, and John Harris for the updates. URLs using http were changed to https where available.

2018-08-12 - GNU Linux-libre 4.18-gnu

Introduced firmware_reject_nowarn; check for new firmware_request_nowarn and other firmware_request interfaces. Deblobbed psp-dev crypto, icn8505 touchscreen. Adjusted deblobbing of qat c3xxx and c62x crypto, dvb-usb, dvb-usb-v2, iwlwifi, ks7010, ath10k, andgpu, i915, tg3, silead, ca0132 hd audio. Dropped atom isp deblobbing. Checked for asm sources split out of amdkfd cwsr trap handler header file.

2018-06-03 - GNU Linux-libre 4.17-gnu: -ENOTEMPTY

Dropped deblobbing of Dreamcast Yamaha AICA, its firmware is Free Software, and of USB IrDA, removed upstream. Adjusted for firmware loader and builddeb reorganization. Updated deblobbing of i915, amdgpu, coda, s5p-mfc, wl1251, and brcmfmac.

The codename -ENOTEMPTY celebrates that, after 10 days of truckers' strike that, despite broad support from the population including myself, led to shortages of fuel and many other products all over Brazil, I could finally refuel my car on Friday.

2018-04-01 - GNU Linux-libre 4.16-gnu: -ESTRBNYX

Revamp reject_firmware_nowait so as give the callback a chance to run; return the expected -ENOENT from other reject_firmware variants. Obfuscate messages that might suggest the installation of non-Free microcode. Deblobbed mt76x2e. Update deblobbing of i915, nouveau, imx-sdma, iwlwifi, raydium-i2c, and silead_dmi. Dropped lirc_zilog. Clean up keyspan firmware Kconfig leftovers.

2018-01-28 - GNU Linux-libre 4.15-gnu

Adjusted deb and rpm build scripts to refer to GNU Linux-libre. Disabled non-Free firmware loading in hideep touchscreen and brcmstb memory drivers. Updated the cleaning up of i915, adreno, amdgpu, tegra, silead dmi, and atomisp. Dropped cleaning up of ap1302 and oss drivers, removed upstream.

2017-11-12 - GNU Linux-libre 4.14-gnu: -ENOFIRMWARE

Dropped deblobbing of the firmware subtree. Adjusted for the new request_firmware_into_buf interface. Deblobbed rtl8822be. Updated deblobbing of microcode, xrx200, amdgpu, irda-usb, skylake sound, netronome nfp, brcmfmac, iwlwifi, and rt5514.

2017-11-11 - linux-libre-firmware

Jason Self, of Freesh fame, put together a distribution of Free firmware for use with GNU Linux-libre: git repo and released tarballs.

2017-09-03 - GNU Linux-libre 4.13-gnu

Deblobbed drivers for Cavium Nitrox CNN55XX, Inside Secure's SafeXcel cryptographic engine, Qualcomm Venus V4L2 encoder/decoder, Mellanox Technologies Spectrum, Quantenna QSR10g, and Qualcomm ADSP and WCNSS. Updated deblobbing for AMDGPU, Adreno A5xx, and Intel i915 CSR GPU, Atheros 802.11ac ath10k, Broadcom IEEE802.11n embedded FullMAC WLAN, Intel DVM and MVM, Redpine Signals WLAN, and Wilocity 60g WiFi, and Silead Tablet touchscreen drivers.

2017-07-07 - Another build server contributed by Jan Prunk

Jan Prunk noticed some of our builds were lagging behind, and kindly offered another build server, the second offered by him. Thank you, Jan!

2017-07-02 - GNU Linux-libre 4.12-gnu

Deblobbed Tegra gpu, AtomISP v4l, RTL8723BS WiFi, and HCILL and Nokia H4+ BT. Updated deblobbing of amdgpu, i915 csr and nouveau GPUs, and Skylake sound. Updated blob names for si2168 dvb, si2157 tuner, ath10k wifi, iwlwifi, rtl8723be wifi, rtl8821ae wifi, and silead touchscreen. Dropped deblobbing of WiLink NFC, removed upstream.

2017-05-01 - GNU Linux-libre 4.11-gnu

Deblobbed Cavium Crypto accelerator, Rockchip gpu, Netronome NFP 4000/6000 ethernet and Silead touchscreen drivers. Added .out and .nffw to the list of extensions regarded as suspected blobs. Updated deblobbing of AMD and Intel gpu drivers, of the Qualcomm peripheral blob loader, of Chips&Media Coda media codecs, Atheros ath10k and wil6210 WiFi, Intel iwlwifi, and Intel Skylake audio drivers.

2017-02-19 - GNU Linux-libre 4.10-gnu

Updated README. Deblob st_fdma. Update deblobbing of amdgpu, adreno, i915, radeon, iwlwifi, slicoss, bfad, and of alsa docs. Drop deblobbing of STE-Modem, removed upstream. Catch a general pattern of iwlwifi blob name prefixes.

2016-12-11 - GNU Linux-libre 4.9-gnu

Enable blobless activation of RV7xx radeon cards. Deblobbed sun8i, Marvell Bluetooth support, ziirave_wdt, greybus. Updated deblobbing of amdgpu, mwifiex, wlcore, imx7s. Dropped deblobbing of r8723au, removed upstream. Corrected deblobbing of b43 and b43legacy to fix a blob name's leakage into error messages.

2016-10-28 - Build server contributed by Jan Prunk

Besides maintaining one of our mirrors, Jan Prunk has now generously offered us access to a build server. That will help ease the load on the one offered by the FSF, and get builds out faster. Thank you, Jan!

2016-10-02 - GNU Linux-libre 4.8-gnu

Enable blobless activation of evergreen radeon cards. Deblobbed mtk_vpu, ks7010_sdio, raydium_i2c_ts, silead, qcom_q6v5_pil, qcom_mdt_loader, and rt5514. Adjusted deblobbing of media docs, mn88472, iwlwifi, skl, brcmfmac, radeon, i915_csr, and btusb.

2016-07-24 - GNU Linux-libre 4.7-gnu

Deblobbed xhci-tegra. Adjusted deblobbing of radeon, i915 csr, mwifiex, brcmfmac, iwlwifi, ath10k testmode, rtl8xxxu wifi, hfi1 Infiniband, and skylake audio.

2016-05-15 - GNU Linux-libre 4.6-gnu

Enable blobless activation of r600 radeon cards. Updated deblobbing of nouveau and skylake audio. Deblobbed melfas_mip4 touchscreen and ag6xx bluetooth drivers. Removed deblobbing of dgap and wimax gdm72xx usb drivers, removed upstream.

2016-03-14 - GNU Linux-libre 4.5-gnu

Deblobbed qat_c3xxx, qat_c62x, adf7242, goodix touchscreen, Qualcomm WCNSS SOC. Updated deblobbing of radeon, nouveau, skylake sound, XHCI rcar. Adjusted for lots of code movement, especially within drivers/net/wireless.

2016-01-10 - GNU Linux-libre 4.4-gnu

Deblobbed qed, fdp, nfcmrvl, rtl8xxxu, and rohm_bu21023. Adjusted deblobbing for revamp of early microcode loader. Dropped ft1000.

2015-11-02 - GNU Linux-libre 4.3-gnu

Deblobbed c8sectpfe, s3fwrn5, Intel and Qualcomm/Atheros Bluetooth, HFI1 Infiniband, Intel Skylake sound. Updated deblobbing of amdgpu, nouveau, mwifiex.

2015-08-30 - GNU Linux-libre 4.2-gnu: "10% of the answer"

Deblobbed amdgpu, i915, cx24120, liquidio, mt7601u, wilc1000, hci_bcm, btrtl, and wdt87xx_i2c. Updated deblobbing of elan_i2c, rproc, cxgb4, ath10k, and brcm80211.

2015-06-22 - GNU Linux-libre 4.1-gnu

Deblobbed nxp-nci and btbcm. Updated deblobbing of Intel SST, btusb, elants_i2c, iwlwifi, and various other frequently-updated blobnames.

2015-05-05 - lemote/gnewsense is now freeloong

The distribution of GNU Linux-libre .debs for Lemote Yeeloong notebooks running gNewSense/mipsel, that didn't have a name and was identified by the lemote/gnewsense directory, is now called freeloong. To use them, add this line to your sources.list:

deb http://linux-libre.fsfla.org/pub/linux-libre/freeloong metad main

2015-04-27 - DeCentOS RPMs

Robert Musial has managed to build a deblobbed kernel based on CentOS 7's blob-ridden one. It's available from the DeCentOS site.

2015-04-12 - GNU Linux-libre 4.0-gnu

Fixed --force handling in deblob-4.0. Cosmetically deblobbed cyapa (the default blob name is unused: loading is always user-initiated, from user-supplied file, so it's fine) and ssp_sensors (blob names were cleaned up, but no loading machinery was encountered). Updated deblobbing and checking of nouveau. Dropped tlg2300.

2015-02-09 - GNU Linux-libre 3.19-gnu

Deblobbed sti (gpu), mn88472 and mn88473 (dvb), ELAN (touchpad), me4000, wd719x, rt5677, and Intel SST IPC drivers. Updated deblobbing of tlg2300, brcmfmac_sdio, ath10k. Dropped deblobbing of bcm_wimax, removed upstream. Added new blob name patterns for adreno gpu, m88ds3103, mwifiex usb, and matches for various new false positives.

Non-functional changes: standardized formatting of clean_kconfig and clean_mk commands in deblob-3.19; check that the Kconfig file given to clean_kconfig contains the named config tag, and fixed the various typos it caught. Improved EXTRAVERSION -gnuification to ensure there is a blank after "=".

2015-01-28 - Deblob scripts now have signatures, branches and tags

The deblob scripts are now signed, in past and future source releases. Scripts published as part of past source releases were verified against the history stored in the version control repository.

In order to make this easier, and to make it easier for users to select stable sets of deblob scripts that work together, we now have per-major-release branches holding the latest version (and past history) of deblobbing scripts for that release. The first release coming out after each change to such a branch also gets a tag, so that every one of our source releases can be easily mapped and compared to a tag.

See also the README file and the branches and tags subdirs within the releases tree in our version control repository.

2014-12-07 - GNU Linux-libre 3.18-gnu and Freed-ora 8-1

Remove deblobbing of usbdux comedi drivers, since the requested firmware is Free Software (thanks to Legimet for the report). Reduced timeout for disarmed blob loading requests (thanks to Cristophe Jarry for the suggestion). Improved the generic error message for blob load requests (thanks to Brian Candler for the suggestion). Fixed buffer overflow in deblobbed irda-usb (thanks to Lluvia for the bug report). Reduce divergence from upstream by avoiding unnecessary renaming of internal functions and field names. Updated deblobbing of msm (adreno GPU), radeon, m920x, bcm3510, or51211, sp8870, sp887x, tda1004x, as102, budget dvb, coda video, ft1000-pcmcia, netxen, qlcnic, r8169, bnx2x, iwlwifi-8000, rtl8723ae, rtl8188eu, rtl8192ee, rtl8821ae, lpfc, and qla2xxx. Deblobbed saa7134-go7007, ath10k testmode, wil6210, and knav_qmss. Dropped deblobbing of removed driver nokia_h4p. Remove external compression of uncompressible xdelta3 diffs.

Freed-ora 8-1 RPM packages were released with an updated mirror list in the yum repository configuration files in the freed-ora-release package, and many additions to the freed-ora-freedom to help you keep your system Free from numerous non-Free kernel sub-packages and non-Free firmware and microcode packages, included in the upstream GNU/Linux distribution, but that were not yet recognized by the previous Freed-ora build. The packages are available in the testing repositories for F19, F20, F21 and F22.

2014-12-07 - New mirrors in Ecuador

Ernesto Pérez Estévez tells us about two full mirrors in Ecuador, kindly hosted by ESPOCH and CEDIA. The mirrors serve http, ftp and rsync at URLs such as http://mirror.espoch.edu.ec/linux-libre/ and http://mirror.cedia.org.ec/linux-libre/. Thanks!

2014-12-07 - Mirror list updated

Jan Prunk has renamed his gnulinux.tv mirror to gnulinux.si.

The mirror at the University of Campinas has long been down.

2014-10-05 - GNU Linux-libre 3.17-gnu

Disabled blob loading in the drivers for Intel QuickAssist Technology, Silicon Labs Si2157 and si2165, Broadcom IEEE802.11n PCIE FullMAC WLAN, xHCI support for Renesas R-Car SoCs. Adjusted cleaning up of go7007 driver, moved out of staging. Dropped deblobbing of wlags49_h2, wlags49_h25, keucr; the drivers were removed. Updated blob names in radeon, si2168, code v4l, s5p_mfc, xc4000, ti-st, ath6kl, brcmfmac, p54, and iwlwifi drivers.

2014-08-07 - GNU Linux-libre 3.16-gnu

Lots of new blobs and blob requests had to be removed for this release: ast_dp501, radeon, drx39xyj, m88ds3103, si2168, s5k5baf, iwlwifi, rsi_91x, rtl8192ee, rtl8723au, rtl8723be, rtl8821ae, bt_nokia_h4p, mxuport, adau1761, and adau1781; dgap and sst-acpi are back after rewrites that required new deblobbing patterns too.

2014-06-08 - GNU Linux-libre 3.15-gnu

Upstream dropped it913x and dgap drivers and added a few new blob names and corresponding requests, all deblobbed in 3.15-gnu. Nouveau and radeon also grew new longish sequences that turned out not to be blobs, so those are explicitly retained.

2014-03-31 - GNU Linux-libre 3.14-gnu: “Freedom Pi”

Dropped checks for aic7xxx_old and cs46xx firmware and sources. Added reject_firmware_direct. Adjusted deblobbing of moved microcode loaders. Updated deblobbing of bnx2x, bt_mrvl, cs46xx. Dropped deblobbing of btmtk (removed upstream).

2014-01-20 - GNU Linux-libre 3.13-gnu

Deblobbed cx24117, vpdma, wcn36xx, and btmrvl. Updated deblobbing of rtl8188eu, em28xx, ath10k, brcmfmac, iwlwifi, readon, and wl1251.

2013-11-03 - GNU Linux-libre 3.12-gnu

Deblobbed msm, pn544_i2c, r8188eu, and dgap drivers. Updated deblobbing of s5p_mfc, bna, and bfa, and added expressions to match several new or modified false positives.

Linked to gdnewhat and slack-n-free as sources of packages.

2013-09-02 - GNU Linux-libre 3.11-gnu: “Linux for freedom-loving Workgroups”

Updated deblobbing of nouveau, radeon, comedi, x86 early microcode loaders. Deblobbed ath10k, cw1200, iwlmvm, mtmtk. Dropped csr_wifi.

2013-07-01 - GNU Linux-libre 3.10-gnu

Updated deblobbing of iwlwifi, csiostor, go7007, siano sms1xxx, and radeon. Disabled non-Free firmware loading of newly-added drivers for btusb, ims-pcu, exynos4 fimc-is, and rtl8188ee. Fixed a deblobbing bug in radeon that affected cayman variants since 2.6.39.

2013-04-28 - GNU Linux-libre 3.9-gnu

Restored the (now Free) firmware loading in ath9k (thanks, Jason Self, for the patches and for the firmware build!). Deblobbed Intel early microcode loader, s5c73m3, rp2, lp5521, lp5523, lattice ecp3, ca0132 dsp. Updated imx sdma, m920x, bnx2x, qlcnic, iwlwifi, mwifiex, wl18xx, wm_adsp deblobbing.

2013-02-19 - GNU Linux-libre 3.8-gnu

Disabled non-Free firmware requests in newly-added drivers xrx200, ar5523, rtl8723ae, csiostor, and wm_adsp, and the new non-Free firmware requests in ath9k and nouveau (falcon). Updated deblobbing of lpfc and gdm72xx. Drop dabusb firmware removal, now removed upstream.

2012-12-11 - GNU Linux-libre 3.7-gnu

Tolerate non-executable deblob-check script, and detect other likely error scenarios that would produce empty files. Fix detection of presence of source files along with pre-built binary counterparts within the source tree. Introduce conditional ihex firmware loading. Adjust for tree reorg within drivers/media. Adjust deblobbing for arm ixp4xx-npe and imx dts, nouveau, rtl8192e, wlcore, gdm72xx, s5k4ecgx, s5p_mfc, xc5000, bfad, ueagle-atm, and tda10071. Deblob daqboard2000, me_daq, ni_pcidio, ezusb_fx2, ste_modem_rproc and wm0010. Drop some of computone, cxgb3, keyspan_pda and whiteheat deblobbing and cleanups.

2012-09-30 - GNU Linux-libre 3.6-gnu

Make deblobbing scripts immune to locale settings. Deblob csr-wifi and wl18xx. Adjust bcm, iwlwifi, wlcore, wl12xx, WiMAX i2400m, Comedi JR3, em28xx-dvb, and r8169. Drop iwmc3200.

2012-07-21 - GNU Linux-libre 3.5-gnu: “Free and a half!”

Deblob af9035 and wlcore. Adjusted deblobbing for nouveau, libertas, wl1251, wl12xx, gdm72xx, r8169, ath6kl, and mwifiex. Dropped 3c359, smctr and tms380tr.

2012-05-21 - GNU Linux-libre 3.4-gnu

Deblobbing news: new az6007 and nfc wilink drivers needed cleaning up; radeon got new blob dependencies; xc5000, lmedm04, em28xx, bna, bnx2x, brcmfmac, iwlwifi, wl12xx, ath6kl and qla2xxx required deblobbing adjustments.

2012-05-18 - New mirror at gnulinux.tv

Jan Prunk set up a new mirror. The server is located in California, USA. Thanks!

2012-04-20 - real-time support in the rt apt repository

Juan Jacobo Nájera has built Linux-libre with real-time support for quite a while, but he's now started uploading his 32- and 64-bit x86 binaries to an apt repository on our servers. To get easy access to the packages, add the following line to your sources.list:

deb http://linux-libre.fsfla.org/pub/linux-libre/rt squeeze main

2012-03-19 - 3.3-gnu: “3.3 as in freedom.freedom”

Linux-libre joins the GNU Project, becoming GNU Linux-libre. This release, 3.3-gnu, marks the transition, although upcoming stable releases based on earlier -libre releases may become -gnu releases as well. Deblobbing scripts now support .gz, .lz and .xz compressed inputs, in addition to .bz2 and uncompressed ones, and tarballs are now named linux-libre--gnu.tar. Few deblobbing changes were required for this release: deblobbing of drivers for arm imx, dib0700, it913x, em28xx-dvb, brcmfmac, iwl3945, iwl4965, and rtl8192e needed some adjusting, while wl12xx-sdio-test and snd-intel-sst are no longer present, and sigmadsp code moved about in the tree.

2012-01-05 - gen5 - 3.2-libre

Cleaned up newly-added drivers it913x, ath6kl, mwifi_pcie, usbduxsigma, as102 and r8192e_pci. Adjusted deblobbing for ethernet drivers, moved within the tree, and s5p-mfc. Fixed deblobbing typos in bt8xx, iwlwifi, libertas usb8xxx, vxge, and pcxhr.

2011-10-31 - Wheezy mipsel binaries

James Turner maintains binary .debs of recent Linux-libre releases for Lemote Yeeloong (mipsel) netbooks.

2011-10-24 - gen5 - 3.1-libre

Newly-added xc4000, drxk_hard, em28xx-dvb, s5p-mfc, rtl8192de, adau1701, and sigma cleaned up. Fixed minor deblobbing bug in iwlwifi. Accept nouveau's new built-in FUC with accompanying source code (some nv cards remain limited by the lack of Free microcode). Dropped deblobbing for removed westbridge, ip2main, and myri_sbus drivers. Adjusted deblobbing for mach-imx, ft1000, brcmsmac, brcmfmac, mwifiex, dib7000p, and others.

2011-09-12 - Freesh binaries

Jason Self's Freesh apt repository carries binary .debs for 32- and 64-bit x86 systems, and support for more architectures is planned. Thanks!

2011-07-22 - gen5 - 3.0-libre

Newly-added mwifiex, rtl8192se, vub300, lpfc and wm8994 cleaned up. Updated deblobbing of ath6k, drxd, bnx2x, brcmfmac, rtl8192ce and rtl8192cu. Dropped deblobbing for upstream-removed rt2860 and rt2870.

2011-06-11 - New mirror in Turkey

Gökdeniz Karadağ tells us linux.org.tr is a new Linux-libre mirror. Thanks!

2011-05-19 - gen5 - 2.6.39-libre

Newly-added technisat-usb2, fm_drv (WL128X), rtl8192cu, ums-eneub6250, and snd-usb-6fire cleaned up. Adjusted deblobbing of computone, cyclades, isi moxa_intellio, dib0700, cx23885, bnx2, brcmsmac, iwlegacy, iwlagn, rtl8192ce, rtl8192u, r8712u, and atmel-mxt. Dropped deblobbing of dabusb (driver removed from upstream, with blobs left over) and dx-sep.

2011-03-15 - gen5 - 2.6.38-libre

Nouveau requested blobs again, large ones this time; radeon required more blobs for new cards; newly-added wl1273, rtl8192ce, can_softing, and re-introduced dx_sep depended on blobs; bnx2 and bnx2x had updated blobs as usual; r8169's blobs were moved out of the sources; dabusb, vicam, wl1xx, serial_cs, icom, and serial_qe were moved about in the tree; bcm_wimax and snd_intel_sst required deblobbing updates; 3c359 had its harmlessly-buggy cleaning-up fixed.

2011-01-09 - gen5 - Updated 2.6.27.36

The README blurb, the loading of PCMCIA CIS files and the fix for the message that recommended the installation of non-Free Software were all backported to the following releases: 2.6.36.3-libre1, 2.6.35.10-libre3, 2.6.34.8-libre2, 2.6.33.7-libre1, 2.6.32.28-libre2, 2.6.31.14-libre4, 2.6.30.10-libre3, 2.6.29.6-libre3, 2.6.28.10-libre5, 2.6.27.57-libre5, as well as their baselines 2.6.36-libre1, 2.6.35-libre3, 2.6.34-libre2, 2.6.33-libre1, 2.6.32-libre2, 2.6.31-libre4, 2.6.30-libre3, 2.6.29-libre3, 2.6.28-libre5, 2.6.27-libre5. The deblobbing scripts in 2.6.37-libre were updated with cosmetic changes that did not change the output. Patch files between base releases and from base to patch release are now GPG-signed, compressed with both bzip2 and lzip. The tarballs for older releases, containing the Free Bait freedom bug, were removed, and the xdeltas and scripts moved to old/gen4.

2011-01-05 - gen5 - 2.6.37-libre

New README blurb about Linux-libre, re-enabled loading of PCMCIA CIS files found to be available under Free with sources elsewhere, adjusted Libertas drivers to accept user-specified firmware, fixed error message that recommended the installation of non-Free Software, removed the newly-introduced blobs from 5 new drivers, disabled requests for blobs from 10 new drivers, updated the cleaning up of 5 drivers, removed the deblobbing of 1 blob-dependent and 1 blob-in-sources driver dropped from staging.

2010-11-07 - Linux-libre/planet .debs

Aurélien Desbrières's Linux-libre binaries are now available at an apt repository on our servers and mirrors. To get easy access to them, add the following line to your sources.list:

deb http://linux-libre.fsfla.org/pub/linux-libre/planet planet main

2010-10-21 - 2.6.36-libre

Deblobbed 2 new blob-dependent drivers, adjusted the deblobbing of 3 others, dropped deblobbing of nouveau, now blob-free, and of a dropped driver. Read the announcement.

2010-08-22 - 2.6.35-libre2

Fixed a deblobbing error in drivers/net/e100.c.

2010-08-03 - 2.6.35-libre1

Fixed a deblobbing error in drivers/media/video/s2255drv.c.

2010-08-02 - 2.6.35-libre, 2.6.34-libre1

Cleaned up 4 new blob-dependent drivers in 2.6.35, fixed a deblobbing error that caused compile errors in r8192S_firmware.c in 2.6.34-libre.

2010-05-18 - 2.6.34-libre

Cleaned up 9 new blob-dependent drivers in 2.6.34, updated cleaning up of a couple others.

2010-02-24 - 2.6.33-libre, generation 4

New, much faster deblob-check, based on Python, GNU awk, PERL or GNU sed, at your choice. Updated for 2.6.33. Blobs are growing faster than Linux. Read the announcement.

2009-12-13 - Linux-libre for Lemote Yeeloong with Freedo

Linux-libre binaries (.deb) for gNewSense metad/mipsel (for Lemote Yeeloong) are available. Compared with the gNewSense binaries, they add a number of modules, and display Freedo as the boot-time logo. Add this line to sources.list:

deb http://linux-libre.fsfla.org/pub/linux-libre/lemote/gnewsense metad main

2009-12-10 - gen3 - 2.6.27-libre3

Released 2.6.27 baseline and 2.6.27.41 deblobbed with updated deblob-check and deblob-2.6.27 scripts.

2009-12-08 - gen3 - 2.6.32-libre, 2.6.31-libre2, 2.6.30-libre1

Updated for 2.6.32, fixed deblobbing bugs (some cosmetic issues, some compile errors in a few drivers in staging, such as ME4000, RT2670, RT2680, and RT3070) in 2.6.31 and 2.6.30. Backported the newer deblobbing of Radeon, R128, and BNX2X to 2.6.30. Untested backports to earlier kernel releases are in the SVN repository.

2009-09-21 - gen3 - 2.6.31-libre1

Fixes deblobbing errors in usbdux staging drivers, reworks the deblobbing of Radeon, R128 and MGA drivers, in preparation for removal of the firmware from upstream, and improves operation with --force for better operation with already-deblobbed kernels and other variants.

2009-09-12 - gen3 - 2.6.31-libre

It's out! 'nuff said.

2009-06-12 - gen3 - 2.6.30-libre

Broadcom b43 WiFi should now work with the Free reverse-engineered firmware. Other than that, this release just updates to the deblobbing machinery to deal with all the upstream shuffling and addition of non-Free firmware and of dependencies on non-Free firmware.

2009-06-09 - gen3 - 2.6.29-libre1, 2.6.28-libre3 and 2.6.27-libre2

This release fixes regressions in e100 and radeon introduced in the gen2 releases, and fixes a few deblobbing errors. Read the announcement.

“Free as in Freedo” T-shirts are on the way

We're going to print T-shirts with Freedo. Check out the design and colors here. Get them first at FISL 10.

2009-04-02 - gen2 - 2.6.27-libre1 released

This release makes the 2.6.27 series suitable for use in Free System Distributions, after backporting and adjusting the clean-ups already available in 2.6.28-libre2 and 2.6.29-libre. 2.6.27.21-libre1 is also available.

2009-03-31 - gen2 - 2.6.28-libre2 and 2.6.29-libre released

The 2.6.28-libre2 release fixes a number of problems in 2.6.28-libre1: some compile errors caused by deblobbing, a few missed non-Free firmware names and references to non-Free firmware, and some shell scripting portability issues. 2.6.28.9-libre2 is also available.

The 2.6.29-libre release uses the same deblobbing infrastructure as 2.6.28-libre2, but it's updated for 2.6.29, and adapted to deal with the pieces of non-Free firmware and drivers that require external non-Free firmware added to the upstream release.

2009-03-21 - gen2 - 2.6.28-libre1 released at Libre Planet 2009

This is the first release completely suitable for Free System Distributions: not only does it remove non-Free Software (and brings back some data tables that used to be removed in earlier release), it also removes requests for and documentation that induced users to install and use non-Free Software.

Get the slides and the audio of the launch speech at the Libre Planet 2009 web site.

How it is done

The removal of non-Free bits from the kernel Linux is accomplished with the script deblob-main, that in turn uses deblob- and deblob-check.

deblob- is inspired in gNewSense's scripts, later customized for BLAG by Jeff Moe, and then further improved as part of the linux-libre project.

deblob-check is a script that you can use to test whether a kernel source file, a patch or a tarball, contains any remaining or suspicious firmware blob.

How to participate

• Mailing list: http://www.fsfla.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-libre
• Social Media: Freedo
• GIT repository: git://linux-libre.fsfla.org/releases.git (see README)
• SVN repository: https://www.fsfla.org/svn/fsfla/software/linux-libre/ (if SVN demands authentication, anonymous is a username that allows anonymous access with a blank password)

Mirrors

FSFLA

https://www.linux-libre.fsfla.org/pub/linux-libre/

https://www.fsfla.org/selibre/linux-libre/download/

rsync://rsync.linux-libre.fsfla.org/linux-libre/

https://mirror.endianness.com/linux-libre/ (Australia)

https://mirror.endianness.com/linux-libre/

mirror.cyberbits.eu (France)

https://mirror.cyberbits.eu/linux-libre/

http://mirror.cyberbits.eu/linux-libre/

rsync://rsync.cyberbits.eu/linux-libre/

linux.org.tr

http://ftp.linux.org.tr/linux-libre/

ftp://ftp.linux.org.tr/linux-libre/

rsync://ftp.linux.org.tr/linux-libre/

flossmirror.org (Germany)

http://linux-libre.flossmirror.org

http://mirror.cyberbits.eu/linux-libre/

repo.jing.rocks (Japan)

https://repo.jing.rocks/linux-libre/

rsync://repo.jing.rocks/linux-libre/

uta.edu.ec (Ecuador)

https://mirror.uta.edu.ec/linux-libre/

ftp://mirror.uta.edu.ec/linux-libre/

rsync://mirror.uta.edu.ec/linux-libre/

cedia.org.ec (Ecuador)

https://mirror.cedia.org.ec/linux-libre/

ftp://mirror.cedia.org.ec/linux-libre/

rsync://mirror.cedia.org.ec/linux-libre/

linuxliber.ro (Romania)

ftp://ftp.linuxliber.ro/ (freesh and freed-ora stable only)

splentity.com (Arizona, USA)

https://mirror.splentity.com/linux-libre/

Robert Millan's Freed-ebian upstream repository (no longer maintained)

https://people.debian.org/~rmh/linux-libre/ (freed-ebian only)

SVN repository structure

• scripts/deblob-main: The main script to clean up a linux tarball.
• scripts/deblob-check: A script that recognizes and optionally cleans up blobs.
• scripts/deblob-$ver: Scripts that clean up blobs from within exploded Linux source trees.
• scripts/README: More details on usage of these scripts.
• releases: Branches and tags of released scripts.
• freed-ora: See freed-ora.
• freed-ebian: Scripts and diffs used to maintain freed-ebian packages.
• lemote: Scripts and diffs used to maintain freeloong GNU Linux-libre binary packages for Lemote Yeeloong notebooks running gNewSense.

Other sources of binaries

• Jason Self maintains both the Freesh apt repository with .debs of recent Linux-libre releases for 32- and 64-bit x86 and powerpc as well as the libeRTy apt repository which carries .debs compiled with the PREEMPT_RT patch for realtime operation on 32- and 64-bit x86 CPUs. Read more.
• Robert Musial has built DeCentOS RPMs.
• The GNU Guix System Distribution uses GNU Linux-libre as its kernel. Obviously
• BLAG ships our Freed-ora kernels. GdNewHat used to do that, too, before it merged with BLAG.
• gNewSense ships Linux-libre kernels. They used to be cleaned up with an older approach, but current releases use current deblobbing technology. For Lemote Yeeloong mipsel notebooks, see our repository.
• Damián Fossi maintains Linux-libre binaries for gNewSense/MIPS (for Lemote Yeeloong laptops), and for Canaima GNU/Linux.
• Henry Jensen maintains the slack-n-free repository, with ConnochaetOS' GNU Linux-libre packages, so that they can be used on distros that cut non-Free Software too much slack.
• FreeSlack also includes GNU Linux-libre packages in its installable images.
• VENENUX GNU/Linux switched to Linux-libre as of its 0.8-rc3 release.
• Trisquel ships 100% Free Linux kernels, based on Linux-libre from version 2.1 onwards.
• Drágora GNU/Linux has shipped Linux-libre in all of its releases.
• Kongoni has adopted Linux-libre as of the Nietszche release.
• VegnuX NeonatoX GNU/Linux has shipped Linux-libre since the 0.48 release.
• Amagi is a gNewSense-based distro for Lemote Yeeloong laptops.
• Parábola GNU/Linux has Linux-libre binaries in its package repositories. If you use the distro on which Parábola is based, these packages could turn it into Freeda d'Arc.
• ConnochaetOS is a light distro, also with Freeda d'Arc potential.
• RMS GNU/Linux-libre (RMS's Mostly Slax) shipped Linux-libre in a Live pen-drive light distro.
• Tlamaki GNU con Linux was based on Trisquel, but it rebased, becoming a FreedSUSE.
• Musix GNU+Linux's adoption of Linux-libre is underway.
• Dyne:bolic is going to have Linux-libre in its next release.
• Heads, also from the fine Dyne folks, is a Tor-enabled liveCD that uses a security-hardened kernel cleaned up with our deblobbing scripts.
• Genfree ebuild scripts are available too, thanks to Nick White.
• There are binary packages for Arch [GNU/]Linux.
• The “Linux Libre Packages” team maintains binary packages of GNU Linux-libre for free human beings.
• Aurélien Desbrières used to build Linux-libre/planet .debs for x86 out of Linux-libre tarballs, for general use. Read more.
• Ali Gündüz used to do that, too.
• Juan Jacobo Nájera used to maintain the rt apt repository with .debs with real-time support. Read more.
• James Turner used to build binary .debs of recent Linux-libre releases for Lemote Yeeloong (mipsel) netbooks.
• Robert Millan used to build Freed-ebian packages.
• If you roll out your own generally-available Linux-libre-based binaries, let us know.

Artwork

The hanging penguin picture was taken by Lewis Laë in November, 2007, and he was kind enough to grant us permission to use it as a logo, in private e-mail. Merci beaucoup, lew!

Anyhow, the picture didn't make for a very good logo. The penguin is cute and clean indeed, but he's still a prisoner. That's why we call him Stux.

Burnaron drew Freetz (thanks!), the penguin above, shown getting out of the shower holding a brush and a towel. He posted a vectorial version too (the image is a link to it).

Rubén Rodrígues Pérez gave, erhm, birth to Freetz's younger brother, Freedo, our official logo. The name was suggested by Jeff Moe. Fernando suggested a grey version for printing in fewer colors. The final touches to Freedo were given by Islene Calciolari Garcia and Alexandre Oliva.

Alexandre Oliva combined Freedo with GNU, creating the image at the top of the page. Binaries published by the Linux-libre project are going to be configured to display this logo at boot up. If you want to use it too, look for patches named 100gnu+freedo.patch, in directories named after Linux-libre builds within SVN repository. A few kernels used an older variant:

Guillaume Pasquet drew Lux, the holy free penguin (thanks!), based on Larry Ewing's original tux; both must be credited for this art work.

Alexandre Oliva put together the levitating gnu, and Lux, being levitated out of the cage. This picture and its vectorial corresponding sources are licensed under the same terms as the levitating gnu: GPLv3+ or GFDL1.1 without invariant sections, front or back cover texts.

Jason Self has drawn a collection of beautiful artwork with GNU and Freedo. Check it out!

Be Free!