[SOLVED] laptop with full open source support

rubankumars · 10-18-2015, 09:18 AM

I recently bought a laptop for office use.But,the laptop required proprietary drivers to function properly.
the laptop is dell inspiron 3541.
Can you give me a list of laptop models which do not need proprietary softwares to function normally?
I am planning on buying a new laptop for home use.
thanks

NGIB · 10-18-2015, 09:23 AM

Not sure this list exists. What you need to avoid are AMD or nVidia video and broadcomm networking.

So basically, Intel based video and not Broadcomm networking. The problem is vendors rarely list the network chipsets used in the specs.

Some laptops will run OK with the open source AMD or nvidia drivers and some will not - it's a crap shoot...

rubankumars · 10-18-2015, 09:27 AM

I have amd radeon chipset for video in my new laptop.It works fine after installing linux-firmware-nonfree.Are there any ways to make it work only with open source?

rubankumars · 10-18-2015, 09:45 AM

i uninstalled firmware-linux-nonfree.
it booted into os.but,says cinnamon is running in software rendering mode.Is it okay to run as such?
Is there any way to use this laptop without proprietary driver?

my chipset

Quote:

ruban@hiiiithere:~$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device 1566
00:01.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Mullins [Radeon R4/R5 Graphics]
00:01.1 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Kabini HDMI/DP Audio
00:02.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device 156b
00:02.1 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 16h Processor Functions 5:1
00:02.2 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 16h Processor Functions 5:1
00:02.3 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 16h Processor Functions 5:1
00:08.0 Encryption controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device 1537
00:10.0 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH USB XHCI Controller (rev 11)
00:11.0 SATA controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH SATA Controller [AHCI mode]
00:12.0 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH USB EHCI Controller (rev 39)
00:13.0 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH USB EHCI Controller (rev 39)
00:14.0 SMBus: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH SMBus Controller (rev 42)
00:14.2 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH Azalia Controller (rev 02)
00:14.3 ISA bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH LPC Bridge (rev 11)
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device 1580
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device 1581
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device 1582
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device 1583
00:18.4 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device 1584
00:18.5 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device 1585
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller (rev 07)
03:00.0 Network controller: Qualcomm Atheros QCA9565 / AR9565 Wireless Network Adapter (rev 01)
ruban@hiiiithere:~$

NGIB · 10-18-2015, 09:53 AM

You can obviously run it like that, because it's running, but it will be slow in any graphics application. Any program that requires direct rendering will likely not run...

lambo69 · 10-18-2015, 09:57 AM

https://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/end...s-your-freedom

TobiSGD · 10-18-2015, 10:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rubankumars

i uninstalled firmware-linux-nonfree.
it booted into os.but,says cinnamon is running in software rendering mode.Is it okay to run as such?

I wouldn't recommend it. Lacking any kind of hardware acceleration will seriously impact power consumption and in turn heat output.
If you want something that is considered really free by the FSF you will have to go for rather exotic hardware, like the Yeeloong laptops with Loongson MIPS CPU, which has all its firmware in ROMs.
That is actually the whole point, the FSF thinks that having firmware burned into ROMs magically turns the software into hardware, so that they can call the machine free, while having the exact same firmware loadable from disk turns the machine into some non-free hardware. If you want to follow this logic is up to you, I certainly won't, for me personally having firmware loaded at boot that doesn't even run on the CPU doesn't make me less free.

ondoho · 10-18-2015, 03:38 PM

lambo69, thanks for the link. very interesting.

on the software side, have you tried dragora linux?
it claims to be 100 free/libre.

Rinndalir · 10-22-2015, 10:04 PM

Realtek is everywhere but it sucks and uses proprietary firmware blobs.

Two links but since you already bought the laptop it's really too late.

Also keep in mind that your really have to do your research because people filling in the databases don't always know what they're doing. Can you imagine someone on the internet that's wrong. I used the h-node db and bought a laptop based on the report there. Only to find out that the info was wrong and the idiot that filled in the info didn't know what they were doing. They were running ubuntu or something and said "Everything works fine!". But they had all kinds of crazy proprietary software to make the hardware work and some of that software only ran on ubuntu.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/hcl/index.php
https://www.h-node.org/

Timothy Miller · 10-22-2015, 10:21 PM

Even intel wireless requires non-free firmware though according to my system

Code:

Package: firmware-iwlwifi
Versions: 
0.44 (/var/lib/apt/lists/httpredir.debian.org_debian_dists_stretch_non-free_binary-amd64_Packages) (/var/lib/dpkg/status)
 Description Language: 
                 File: /var/lib/apt/lists/httpredir.debian.org_debian_dists_stretch_non-free_binary-amd64_Packages
                  MD5: 1dfc42b7e68caed890da10aea9e66a6c
 Description Language: en
                 File: /var/lib/apt/lists/httpredir.debian.org_debian_dists_stretch_non-free_i18n_Translation-en
                  MD5: 1dfc42b7e68caed890da10aea9e66a6c


Reverse Depends: 
  education-common,firmware-iwlwifi
Dependencies: 
0.44 - initramfs-tools (0 (null)) 
Provides: 
0.44 - firmware-iwlwifi:i386

frankbell · 10-22-2015, 10:27 PM

Open hardware is one thing, but I can name some vendors who provide machines with native Linux installs. They may not be open hardware, but they all work out-of-the-box with Linux: System76, Zareason, Thinkpenguin.

There may be others, but those are the ones I know of. I favor Zareason, because it allows you to pick your distro and I have had good experiences with them. The others come with Ubuntu. They are all USA companies, but some of them ship internationally.

syg00 · 10-22-2015, 11:01 PM

I appreciate any company that is prepared to offer support (even proprietary) under Linux.
As apparently do Linus and the kernel devs. After a long (and somewhat bitter) debate, they made accommodations for binary blobs to be acceptable.
Good enough for me - I only ever get Intel wifi these days on laptops.

Timothy Miller · 10-22-2015, 11:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by syg00

I appreciate any company that is prepared to offer support (even proprietary) under Linux.
As apparently do Linus and the kernel devs. After a long (and somewhat bitter) debate, they made accommodations for binary blobs to be acceptable.
Good enough for me - I only ever get Intel wifi these days on laptops.

For the most part, so do I, you're almost guaranteed good performance. Although I like to play with cheap hardware (my laptop 4 in sig, $100) just to see how linux runs.

ardvark71 · 10-23-2015, 01:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rubankumars

Can you give me a list of laptop models which do not need proprietary softwares to function normally?

Hi...

According to the FSF, there is one model that offers what you're looking for...

http://minifree.org/product/libreboot-x200/

EDIT: Nevermind, looks like lambo69 beat me to it.

Regards...