Group: Hardware/FSDG distributions

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Revision as of 01:49, 23 September 2019 by GNUtoo (talk | contribs) (Architectures support)
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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

Minimum hardware requirements

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