A Latin-American Free Software Foundation has published a fully free version of the Linux 5.17 kernel — Linux-libre 5.17-gnu, cleaned of firmware and driver elements containing non-free components or code snippets restricted by the manufacturer. Additionally, Linux-libre disables the kernel features for loading external non-free components not included with the kernel 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.
The Linux-libre 5.17-gnu release includes code for cleaning blobs in dts files for new SoCs based on the Aarch64 architecture and in the x86-android-tablets driver for x86-based tablets. The blob removal code has been updated in the drivers and subsystems tegra, bnx2x, mt7915, btmtk, and mscc.
Forrás: opennet.ru
