A Latin-American Free Software Foundation has published, with a slight delay, a fully free version of the Linux kernel 5.14 — Linux-libre 5.14-gnu1, cleaned of firmware elements and drivers containing non-free components or pieces of code whose use is restricted by the manufacturer. Additionally, Linux-libre disables kernel features for loading non-free components not included in the kernel distribution and removes references to the use of non-free components from the documentation.
To cleanse the kernel from non-free parts, a universal shell script has been created within the Linux-libre project, containing thousands of templates to identify the presence of binary inserts and exclude false positives. Ready-made patches based on the use of the aforementioned script are also available for download. The Linux-libre kernel is recommended for use in distributions that meet the Free Software Foundation's 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.
In the new release, the loading of blobs in the new eftc and qcom arm64 drivers has been disabled. The blob cleaning code in the btrtl, amdgpu, adreno, i915, sp8870, av7110, r8188eu, btqca, and xhci-pci-renesas drivers and subsystems has been updated. Additionally, modifications have been made to the code for cleaning the microcode for x86 systems, as well as the removal of previously missed blobs in the microcode loading components for powerpc 8xx systems and in micro-patches to firmware for vs6624 sensors. Since the specified blobs were present in previous kernel releases, it has been decided to form updates for previously released versions of Linux-libre 5.13, 5.10, 5.4, 4.19, 4.14, 4.9, and 4.4, labeling the new variants as '-gnu1'.
Forrás: opennet.ru
