Group: Hardware/Software/FSDG distributions

Introduction

Having all the hardware of a given computer being able to work with only free software is not enough as you also need to be able to run an FSDG compliant distribution on that computer.

This article is meant to summarize the hardware requirement of FSDG compliant distributions.

General purpose GNU/Linux distributions

General information

Distribution	Audience	Release type
GuixSD	Technical users with good command line knowledge (or willing to learn it)	?
Hyperbola	Technical users with good command line knowledge (or willing to learn it)	Stable releases
Parabola	Technical users with good command line knowledge (or willing to learn it)	Rolling releases
PureOS	Everybody	Rolling release
Trisquel 8	Everybody	Stable releases

Architectures support

Distribution or software	x86 32bit support	x86 64bit support	ARM 32bit support	ARM 64bit support	PowerPC 64bit little endian support
GuixSD	i686	Yes	armhf	Yes	?
Hyperbola	i686	Yes	No	No	No
Parabola	i686	Yes	armv7h	No	Unfinished/WIP?
PureOS	No	Yes	No	Through debootstrap?	No
Trisquel	i686	Yes	No	No	No

Adding support for a device

ARM devices

For ARM devices, you typically need to add a package for a free software bootloader that supports the device, and make sure that upstream Linux has enough hardware support to make the device useful.

Small distributions

Distribution or software	Audience	Release type
libreCMC		Stable releases
ProteanOS
Replicant	Extremely basic command line knowledge required for the installation	Stable releases

Architectures support

Distribution or software	x86 32bit support	x86 64bit support	ARM 32bit support	ARM 64bit support	MIPS support
libreCMC	Requires to build from source	Requires to build from source	Requires to build from source	No	Yes
ProteanOS	?	?	?	?	?
Replicant	No	No	Yes	No	No

Adding support for a device

Distribution or software	Adding support for a device
General purpose GNU/Linux distributions	You may need to package device specific software like bootloaders for non-x86 devices You may need to update or write installation instructions for the device if the existing ones do not support the device You need to upstream the code that makes the hardware work if it's not already done
libreCMC
ProteanOS
Replicant	You need to add a vendor/device/the-vendor/the-device repository with the hardware configuration You may need to package the code that makes the hardware work if it's not already done

TODO

• Point to https://wiki.parabola.nu/Rolling_vs._LTS