If you do not want to use software written by Red Hat, you have to stop using Linux. Quite frankly also much of the GNU suite such as Glibc and GCC. You would absolutely have to stop using either Xorg or Wayland. Systemd is just an example of something Red Hat created but they are massive contributors to a lot of other surf too.
I you want to avoid software written by profit motivated companies, you are down to about 15% of the open source ecosystem.
Correct.
There is also iFuse and iMobileDevice
Very impressive. The M1 Macs at least seem to be quite functional at this point and everything either has been or is in the process of hitting the mainline.
Lots of work to do of course but many would have bet against getting this far. But there is a big difference between “could be better” and “stuff doesn’t work”. Getting the Rust based GPU driver into the kernel is a major achievement on its own and may do a lot to silence the “Rust isn’t used for anything real in the kernel” crowd as well.
With all the recent drama, I think some assumed the project was on the ropes. But the updates on the M2 and the reduced support burden of their past work leave me pretty hopeful that good progress will continue.
To be fair, not every Linux distro works the same. It has been a while since I setup Apache but there used to be quite a difference in configuration between Fedora derived distros and Debian derived distros for example.
Got it. I was not familiar with this Linux Foundation initiative. Very cool.
It looks like they support the LTS kernels as an extension of Debian. So, kernel 6.12 will get 10 years of support after Debian Trixie launches with it this summer.
That means 486 will be fully supported until at least mid 2035. Amazing.
As somebody that offered a “correction”, I can assure you that I did not downvote.
The Linux kernel still supports Pentium but most Linux distros do not. The only two I can think of are Adelie and Gentoo. Nothing based on Debian does (Pentium Pro minimum).
There are still ATMs running OS/2 and probably lots of POS systems running DOS.
The latest kernels still work on 486 - kernel 6.14 currently.
What does the age of the hardware have to do with it?
You can run a 486 today with the latest Linux kernel, the latest C library, and the latest utilities. A 486 is not vulnerable to Spectre and Meltdown. It may be more secure than a typical i7.
Come to think of it. Acting as a bastion server may be a legitimate use of a 486 today.
The NVIDIA problems are historical.
You will notice the people that actually have NVIDIA cards all say NVIDIA works.
The people saying NVIDIA does not work are all using AMD. They may have owned NVIDIA in the past and there may have been issues. But those issues have been resolved.
Even those distros are only possible if you arbitrarily decide the firmware is not software. If you want to be more honest about having free software all way down, you have to avoid AMD and Intel CPUs at the very least and most GPUs too. And, if you are not going to do that, why fuss about the BIOS?
Unless you are using a totally Free Software stack on on Open Source CPU with an Open Source ISA, it is just a question of where you draw the line between convenience and “principles”.
There are truly Open Source RISC-V CPUs. It could be done. That is not what those “libre” distros are doing.
Since none of us are using a 100% free stack, I think distros like Debian strike the right balance between “free” and “useful”.