La Latin American Free Software Foundation unveiled recently the publication of the new version completely "free" from Linux Kernel 5.7 "Linux-libre 5.7-gnu" whose main characteristic is that it is free of firmware elements and drivers that contain proprietary components or parts of the code whose application is limited by the manufacturer.
Linux-free is the kernel recommended by the Free Software Foundation and a main piece of the GNU distributions totally free of proprietary fragments or included firmware in Linux they are used to initialize devices or apply patches to them that solve hardware failures that could not be corrected before being made available to users.
The firmware is loaded in the device by the controller, forming part of this and therefore of the kernel. These firmwares are known to contain vulnerabilities that can affect Linux despite using free drivers, such as the Intel Management Engine.
In some cases, without the firmware, it is not possible to operate the device, making it unusable. This leads to less Linux-libre compatible hardware than Linux.
About Linux-Libre
When talking about devices, the CPU of the computer is also included. This means that computers can be totally unusable if your microprocessor also requires corrective firmware to function properly.
In addition, Linux-libre disables kernel functions to load non-free components that are not part of the kernel provisioning and removes the mention of the use of non-free components from the documentation.
To clean the kernel of non-free parts, a universal shell script was created as part of the Linux-libre project, containing thousands of templates for determining the presence of binary inserts and removing false positives.
Ready-made patches based on the use of the above script are also available for download.
The use of the Linux-libre kernel is recommended in distributions that meet the Open Source Foundation criteria for building completely free GNU / Linux distributions. For example, the Linux-libre kernel is used in distributions such as Dragora Linux, Trisquel, Dyne: Bolic, gNewSense, Parabola, Musix, and Kongoni.
Although the main disadvantage of using this kernel and which is known by default is the removal of firmware from certain hardware such as some Wi-Fi cards, sound cards, and graphics cards with special emphasis on NVIDIA
Main new features of Linux-libre 5.7
In this new version of the Linux-Libre Kernel 5.7 the work focused on removing code from some drivers.
Such is the chaos of disabled code that handles blob loading in that drivers for Marvell OcteonTX CPT, Mediatek MT7622 WMAC, Qualcomm IPA, Azoteq IQS62x MFD, IDT 82P33xxx PTP and MHI buses.
In addition to the fact that the cleaning and modifying the blob code to account for the new firmware upload interface and new blobs on AMD GPU drivers and subsystems, Arm64 DTS, Meson VDec, Realtek Bluetooth, m88ds3103 frontend dvb, Mediatek mt8173 VPU, Qualcomm Venus, Broadcom FMAC, Mediatek 7622/7663 wifi.
Of the other changes that are mentioned in the ad:
- Considered the mscc driver move and documentation in wd719x.
- The i1480 uwb driver has stopped cleaning due to being removed from the kernel.
- Removed executable blobs decorated as number sets added in the i915 controller and used for Gen7 GPUs.
- In the deblob-check script, issues with self-check were resolved and some standard blob highlighting templates were redone.
How do I get and install Linux-Libre on my distribution?
For those who are interested in being able to try this Linux-Libre Kernel, the main recommendation for those who do not feel safe or do not have the necessary knowledge to carry out the compilation, the better choose to use any of the aforementioned distribution that make use of this kernel.
In case you want to obtain the packages to carry out the compilation, you can obtain them by going to to the following link or you can also check the following information for distributions with support for APT.