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  9. <title>List of recommended GNU+Linux distributions for libreboot</title>
  10. </head>
  11. <body><div class="section"><p>If you're using libreboot from git, note that only CrOS devices build at the moment. We merged a newly rewritten build system recently, and we've yet to complete re-integration of older boards into Libreboot. Use Libreboot 20160907 for the time being, unless you're involved in libreboot development</p></div>
  12. <div class="section">
  13. <h1 id="pagetop">List of recommended GNU+Linux distributions for libreboot</h1>
  14. <p>
  15. Any distribution should work, so long as it uses kernel mode setting for graphics.
  16. We recommend using distributions that are entirely free software; most distros
  17. out there have proprietary software in them, but the ones that we recommend
  18. do not have proprietary software by default.
  19. </p>
  20. <p>
  21. Note: we are not the Free Software Foundation. The recommendations here
  22. consist of both FSF-endorsed and non-FSF-endorsed distros. Some of these
  23. distributions wrongly call the whole system <em>Linux</em>. Despite libreboot's
  24. <a href="../../gnu/">stance against the GNU project</a>, we still agree
  25. with the free software philosophy and we still want you to call the
  26. whole system <em>GNU+Linux</em>, since this is the technically correct
  27. name for the system.
  28. </p>
  29. <h2>FSF-endorsed distros</h2>
  30. <p>
  31. Many FSF-endorsed GNU+Linux distributions are considered unfit
  32. for general use by the libreboot project.
  33. You can read about their problems here:<br/>
  34. <a href="../fsf-distros/">Why we can't endorse many FSF-endorsed distributions</a>.
  35. </p>
  36. <p>
  37. <a href="../gnulinux/grub_boot_installer.html">How to install GNU+Linux on a libreboot system</a>
  38. </p>
  39. <p>
  40. <a href="../">Back to main index</a>
  41. </p>
  42. </div>
  43. <div class="section">
  44. <h2>Debian</h2>
  45. <p>
  46. Most of the developers use it (Leah Rowe always uses testing
  47. releases of Debian). We recommend Debian stable releases for
  48. most users. If you want to do development, e.g. libreboot
  49. development, then you should use the testing release of Debian.
  50. </p>
  51. <p>
  52. Debian by default comes without non-free software in the default
  53. installation or repos. There is a non-free repo that's not added
  54. by default. Just avoid adding this, and you should have a fully
  55. free system.
  56. </p>
  57. <p>
  58. <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Visit the Debian website</a>
  59. </p>
  60. <p>
  61. We recommend using the <em>MATE</em> desktop.
  62. </p>
  63. <h2>Devuan</h2>
  64. <p>
  65. Devuan is a fork of Debian that does not use the controversial
  66. <em>systemd</em> init system.
  67. </p>
  68. <p>
  69. See: <a href="https://www.devuan.org/os/init-freedom/">https://www.devuan.org/os/init-freedom/</a>.
  70. </p>
  71. <p>
  72. <a href="https://www.devuan.org/">Visit the Devuan website</a>
  73. </p>
  74. <p>
  75. We recommend using the <em>MATE</em> desktop.
  76. </p>
  77. <h2>Qubes</h2>
  78. <p>
  79. Security-focussed distribution. It makes heavy use of IOMMU and
  80. hardware virtualization to separate running
  81. applications, along with other security features. Provides
  82. a full hypervisor for running applications.
  83. </p>
  84. <p>
  85. Also heavily in favour of adoption of both Libreboot and Coreboot.
  86. </p>
  87. <p>
  88. <strong>
  89. Of all available Libreboot systems, Qubes is currently only known
  90. to be compatible with the ASUS KGPE-D16 and KCMA-D8, due to the
  91. hardware virtualization requirement (and even on those boards,
  92. only certain CPUs have fully functional virtualization in
  93. Libreboot).
  94. </strong>
  95. </p>
  96. <p>
  97. <a href="https://www.qubes-os.org/">Visit the Qubes website</a>
  98. </p>
  99. <h2>Dragora</h2>
  100. <p>
  101. Fully free distribution, with a focus on simple package management
  102. and configuration. Experienced users might like this distro. It also
  103. has native support for multiple languages.
  104. </p>
  105. <p>
  106. <a href="https://dragora.org/">Visit the Dragora website</a>
  107. </p>
  108. <h2>Parabola</h2>
  109. <p>
  110. Fully free bleeding edge distribution, based on the <em>Arch</em> distribution.
  111. Good for saavy users and developers in general (some libreboot developers
  112. use this).
  113. </p>
  114. <p>
  115. Arch users, refer to the <a href="https://wiki.parabola.nu/Migration_from_the_GNU+Linux_distribution_of_Arch">Parabola migration guide</a>.
  116. </p>
  117. <p>
  118. <a href="https://www.parabola.nu/">Visit the Parabola website</a>
  119. </p>
  120. <p>
  121. We recommend using the <em>MATE</em> desktop.
  122. </p>
  123. <h2>Gentoo</h2>
  124. <p>
  125. Gentoo is a bleeding edge <em>source based</em> distribution.
  126. It provides only source code in its repositories, and the <em>portage</em>
  127. package manager automatically compiles the source code for you
  128. along with all dependencies, when installing packages. This makes
  129. the distribution extremely configurable. It's common in Gentoo
  130. to see 10, 20 or even 30 versions of the same package, with different
  131. patches, and you can mix and match.
  132. </p>
  133. <p>
  134. Gentoo has a page about libreboot (WARNING: not guaranteed to be
  135. up to date with changes from libreboot or Gentoo itself):<br/>
  136. <a href="https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Installation_on_libreboot">https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Installation_on_libreboot</a>
  137. </p>
  138. <p>
  139. Gentoo provides non-free software by default, but you can configure
  140. the package manager when installing it, so that it doesn't let
  141. you install non-free software. This way, you will end up with a
  142. completely free system.
  143. </p>
  144. <p>
  145. Modify your <em>/etc/portage/make.conf</em> with the relevant license groups. See:
  146. <a href="https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/License_Groups#Metasets">https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/License_Groups#Metasets</a>
  147. - and <a href="https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki//etc/portage/make.conf#ACCEPT_LICENSE">https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki//etc/portage/make.conf#ACCEPT_LICENSE</a>
  148. - configure the <em>ACCEPT_LICENSE</em> string accordingly. if you plan using <a href="https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Overlay">overlays</a> it is also
  149. recommended that apart from the FREE metaset, you also add GPL to the variable ACCEPT_LICENSE as in some overlays there are packages that define that
  150. they are using the GPL license but not what version of the GPL They are using.
  151. </p>
  152. <p>
  153. You also need to deblob your kernel: For that you need to add the
  154. deblob useflag in the USE variable at /etc/portage/make.conf see
  155. <a href="https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Installation_on_libreboot#Let_portage_remove_the_blobs">https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Installation_on_libreboot#Let_portage_remove_the_blobs</a>
  156. , so that when you install the source code of the kernel it is
  157. emerged without the blobs, however this will only work if your
  158. objective is to install the hardened-sources, ck-sources, or the
  159. rt-sources kernel, so if you plan to install any other kernel such as
  160. gentoo-sources (the recommended kernel by the Gentoo Project) or any
  161. other kernel listed at <a href="https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Kernel/Overview">https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Kernel/Overview</a>
  162. you have two options:</p>
  163. <ol>
  164. <li>
  165. <p>Creating a local overlay (repository) with a modified copy
  166. of your desired kernel’s ebuild so that the deblob useflag does
  167. work in it (This may not work if you use the kernel git-sources, as
  168. of git-sources unstable, inconsistent, bleeding-edge nature it may
  169. work at some point and in other not, also pf-sources won’t work
  170. with this method as its versioning classification does conflict with
  171. Gentoo’s internal script for controlling the deblobbing proccess,
  172. however if you want to mess with the script it is located inside the
  173. file at /usr/portage/eclass/kernel-2.eclass). For this first create
  174. a local overlay following the steps defined at
  175. <a href="https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Overlay/Local_overlay">https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Overlay/Local_overlay</a>
  176. , next create the directory of your kernel at
  177. /usr/local/portage/sys-kernel/your-kernel-dir, after that copy the
  178. ebuild of your desired kernel from
  179. /usr/portage/sys-kernel/your-kernel-dir/your-kernel.ebuild to
  180. usr/local/portage/sys-kernel/your-kernel-dir/your-kernel.ebuild,
  181. then open it in an editor and add a line with K_DEBLOB_AVAILABLE=”1”
  182. between the variable EAPI and the line inherit kernel-2, and finally
  183. run with root permissions the command <b>ebuild
  184. /usr/local/portage/sys-kernel/your-kernel-dir/your-kernel.ebuild
  185. manifest</b> <span style="font-weight: normal">; after that if you
  186. had already added </span><b>deblob</b> <span style="font-weight: normal">to
  187. your useflags you can continue with the kernel installation as you
  188. normally would.</span></p>
  189. </li><li>
  190. <p>Adding an exception to the licences that are accepted for
  191. your desired kernel so that portage allows installing the source
  192. code of your desired kernel even if it has blobs, and after that
  193. applying the linux-libre deblob scripts by yourself and by doing so
  194. removing the blobs. For this first create a file in
  195. /etc/portage/package.license with the following content
  196. <b>sys-kernel/your-kernel-sources freedist</b> <span style="font-weight: normal">,
  197. next emerge (install) the source code of your kernel with portage,
  198. after that go to /usr/src/linux and download the proper </span><b>deblob-check</b> <span style="font-weight: normal">
  199. and </span><b>deblob-version</b> <span style="font-weight: normal"> scripts for your kernel version from
  200. <a href="http://www.fsfla.org/svn/fsfla/software/linux-libre/releases/tags/">http://www.fsfla.org/svn/fsfla/software/linux-libre/releases/tags/</a>,
  201. then make them executable, and finally set the </span><b>EPYTHON</b>
  202. <span style="font-weight: normal">variable to python2.7 and execute
  203. with root permissions the script </span><b>deblob-version</b> <span style="font-weight: normal">; after that continue
  204. with the kernel installation as you normally would. </span>
  205. </p>
  206. </li></ol>
  207. <p><span style="font-weight: normal">It is also possible to install
  208. the linux-libre sources following the ins</span><span style="font-weight: normal">tructions
  209. at
  210. <a href="https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Installation_on_libreboot#Use_linux-libre_sources">https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Installation_on_libreboot#Use_linux-libre_sources</a></span>
  211. however this is not recommended as portage would not be able to
  212. manage it.</p>
  213. <p>
  214. <a href="https://gentoo.org/">Visit the Gentoo website</a>
  215. </p>
  216. <p><a href="#pagetop">Back to top of page</a></p>
  217. </div>
  218. <div class="section">
  219. <p>
  220. Copyright &copy; 2016 Leah Rowe &lt;info@minifree.org&gt;<br/>
  221. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
  222. under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license
  223. or any later version published by Creative Commons;
  224. A copy of the license can be found at <a href="../cc-by-sa-4.0.txt">../cc-by-sa-4.0.txt</a>
  225. </p>
  226. <p>
  227. Updated versions of the license (when available) can be found at
  228. <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode</a>
  229. </p>
  230. <p>
  231. UNLESS OTHERWISE SEPARATELY UNDERTAKEN BY THE LICENSOR, TO THE
  232. EXTENT POSSIBLE, THE LICENSOR OFFERS THE LICENSED MATERIAL AS-IS
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