I recently decided to go all out and switch to FreeSlack. If course one of the main thing about it is the complete lack of nonfree kernel blobs and headers. I don't know how this works but would it be possible for me to install the non free blobs needed for 3D rendering on radeon? And just those? Idk if its just that but I'm having trouble getting my HDMI display to change to the proper resolution. It's a 1280x720 display and I onky get two completely separate, extreme resolutions as options in the system settings. I know I can use Xrandr for this but it wont let me. Why? Because it says it can't find my displays gama settings or something. And googling that reveals that I might not even have the radeon drivers installed.........it says I'm using Mesa at least. This is so confusing.

There's 2 ways to go.
1. If your card is newish (0-3 years released) risk the binary blob.
2 If your card is older, you might not have support from the binary blob. Update the system and install radeon drivers, look for the radeon kernel module and build a new kernel if necessary. Depending on your card, you may want LLVM. You also need recent versions of libpixman, libdrm, Mesa, & xorg-server.

It's not a good idea to choose firmware-free system and AMD video card.
Have a look here:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...nd-4175586177/

.

In my personal point of view, modern video card firmware blobs are extremely dangerous to users' privacy and security, almost as much as the code running within network interfaces. So you need to think about the payoff here: you are not really running a libre kernel anymore, so is it even worth the effort? Getting your hardware straight first may be a much more fruitful line of action.

On the technical side, I believe the way Linux-libre cuts out proprietary firmware is pretty thorough, so even if you dump the needed proprietary blob firmware where it belongs, Linux-libre will simply ignore it. So your practical choices are: either curate and remove all blobs you don't use in the stock Linux kernel, or mangle Linux-libre. Once again, I feel either option will simply waste your time: you will have a mangled kernel package infested with blobs.

I agree with qweasd. If you need to pollute your FreeSlack system with non-libre firmware to get it running the way you want it to, then what is the point of running FreeSlack vs regular Slackware?

Well, I can understand the argument where a little contamination is believed to be better than a lot of contamination, but when I look at radeon and nvidia in particular, I am personally terrified of what is hiding within literally megabytes of firmware code.

I think that kind of reasoning is a just load of crock. I am sorry but after this thread I am unable to take you seriously.

Who are you talking to, AB?

You of course. If you want to use non-free drivers then there is no difference between 10K and 10M of inaccessible code. I can hack you with a few lines of code, size does not matter. Your reasoning is bogus.
If you want to use Freeslack, your motivation is lead by principles. If you want to use the non-free Radeon driver then your motivation is driven by pragmatism. If you want to combine the two, you are just lying to yourself.

That's pretty much what he was saying. The OP is a different user.

I sure hope you don't take me seriously, that would be a big mistake The only things I myself take seriously are listed in the title of this song.

Yeah I don't want to make a big deal out of it, I just like discussing these things. I basically agree with what you are saying. Obviously one can hide more malicious features and hide them better in a larger blob, while a really small blob can be proven safe via reverse-engineering. How much of a difference does that make in practice, I can't judge, so may be you are right about the size being moot.

Your second paragraph is spot on: it is almost impossible to justify any kind of middle ground here, whether one is guided by ethical principles, like FSF, or by security-related paranoia, as is the case with me.

At any rate, I am well aware my views on security are highly unorthodox, and few people (or even professionals) share them, which is why I try to be careful to point out these are are personal beliefs. For what it's worth, here's an in-depth look at my argument with respect to the risk assessment of closed-source blobs.

I did not find that in-depth look at the URL you provided, or should I have clicked the links posted in that thread instead? That soylentnews thread is about a few people discussing the unwillingness of the Tails developer to discuss the merits of a security-focused distro to switch to a libre software model. Nothing in-depth.
Are you 'melikamp'?

And I am glad you confirm I do not have to take your question seriously.

Yah I am melikamp at SN, and John Smith in linked Tails list, where a lot of the argument is. The argument pertains to Tails' stance most of all, but I do try to explain why I believe that currently deployed proprietary blobs are so nasty, which would be true for virtually any project.

Well I simply didn't realize the Free radeon driver depended on nonfree blobs. Well of course it would, no one must see the precious code for our ©™ graphics cards. I guess I'll just have to go back to regular slack now. I only really need the blobs for like one game is the infuriating part. Damn you classic WoW private servers.

I guess I at least know why so few people bother running any of the 100% Free distros now. First 99.9% of all bios are still locked down, now almost every video card is neutered unless you run shady anti free code. Glorious. And this is why the majority of major distros labeling themselves as "Open Source' is such a problem.

Is that really accurate? I've been living under the impression that as long as
returns a zero value, the kernel is using only GPL'd modules.
I'm using the Free radeon driver on an old mobile chip, and I don't feel dirty :-P