manual: Describe the GNU Boot project.
So far the manual only tell that GNU Boot is a boot software distribution and it explains what it means. It didn't tell what it means for GNU Boot to be fully free. In addition, other 100% free software boot distributions also exists, so we also need to explain why we need GNU Boot to exist. More details about the GPU issue will be added later on. Signed-off-by: Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli <GNUtoo@cyberdimension.org> Acked-by: Adrien 'neox' Bourmault <neox@gnu.org>
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@ -67,8 +67,8 @@ somewhat similar projects.
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@node What is GNU Boot
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@section What is GNU Boot
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GNU Boot is a @dfn{boot software} @dfn{distribution}. What this means
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will be explained below.
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GNU Boot is a boot software distribution. What this means will be
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explained below.
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@node boot software
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@subsection boot software
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@ -158,6 +158,148 @@ So it is similar to GNU/Linux distributions like Trisquel 11
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(aramo) that also reuse various software to produce something that
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can be installed.
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@node Why free boot software is important
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@section Why free boot software is important
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Freedom is important in general, and running nonfree software has
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negative consequences regardless of the type of software (game, boot
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software, operating system, driver, etc).
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@sp 1
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Here are some examples of common issues for nonfree boot software:
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@itemize
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@item Since the boot software loads the operating system, it
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can potentially modify it in a malicious way. In most cases part of
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the boot software also continues to run once the operating system is
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started. Because of that and, and because of the way the hardware and
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boot software run, the boot software can also do such modification at
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any time. If the boot software is nonfree, it is way harder to find
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and remove malicious code (it's even impossible to remove in some
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cases), and there is no way to make sure that there is none left. For
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instance many nonfree boot software where shipped with the CompuTrace
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malware (which was advertised as an anti-theft security feature).
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@item Vendors of various hardware components have to collaborate together
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to provide updates for nonfree Boot software, so in practice
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they decide when updates are done. So if a computer is not sold
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anymore, it is unlikely to get update for its Boot software
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unless the Boot software uses some free software that can be
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updated. Also note that applying nonfree updates comes with huge risk
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as we don't know what's inside the updates. Hardware vendors who
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provide the updates also have an incentive to make things worse for
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the users, so they would be pushed to buy new devices.
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@item Some nonfree Boot software restrict what you can do with
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your computer. For instance they refuse to boot if you changed or
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removed some hardware components.
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@end itemize
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@node Why use GNU Boot
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@section Why use GNU Boot
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As explained before GNU boot is just a distribution. So it is also
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possible to take the same software that GNU Boot reuses, and to build,
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assemble and install it yourself.
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However doing that is risky because if something goes wrong, your
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computer won't boot anymore.
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So the goals of GNU Boot are to:
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@itemize
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@item Collaborate together to test if GNU Boot releases works fine.
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@item Provide documentation to enable easy installation and usage.
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@item Limit the amount of work done by GNU Boot and contribute
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directly to the software we reuse whenever possible.
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@end itemize
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GNU Boot also has a long term focus, so it tries not to break users
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use cases, and tries as much as possible to fix issues in the projects
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it reuses instead of doing workarounds that impact users.
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@node Other free boot software distributions
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@section Other free boot software distributions
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The following GNU/Linux distributions should also provide 100% free
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boot software but they usually only provide them for computers using
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the ARM architecture (which GNU Boot doesn't support yet):
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@itemize
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@item Parabola
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@item PureOS
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@item Trisquel
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@end itemize
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The GNU Guix package manager (which GNU Boot also reuses) also provide
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100% free boot software for some ARM computers. However the Guix
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packages are updated all the time and the Guix project doesn't provide
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any way for users to report that specific ARM computers work fine with
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the boot software they provide.
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There is also Canoeboot which is a 100% free software boot
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distribution similar to GNU Boot. Its goal is to remove nonfree
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software from Libreboot. It focuses more on having the latest software
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and many features, including some that are not available in the
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projects it reuses. Because of that it can be harder for users to use.
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@node How much free software is GNU Boot?
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@section How much free software is GNU Boot?
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Being a GNU package, GNU Boot itself is 100% free software. If you
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find nonfree software in GNU Boot and/or any source code or binaries
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released by GNU Boot, please contact its maintainers by opening a bug
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report on its bug tracker at
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@url{https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?group=gnuboot}.
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But that doesn't mean that GNU Boot magically makes everything not
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provided by GNU Boot free software.
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In some cases GNU Boot even runs nonfree software not provided by GNU
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Boot like nonfree GPUs drivers provided by the removable GPU card.
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To address problems like that the @uref{https://www.fsf.org/,Free
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Software Foundation} has created the
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@uref{https://ryf.fsf.org/,Respect Your Freedom hardware
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certification} to list hardware that works with only free software
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(with some very small exceptions for some components, see
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@uref{https://ryf.fsf.org/about/criteria, its criteria} for more
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details).
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In addition there is also
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@uref{https://www.fsfla.org/ikiwiki/blogs/lxo/draft/blob-fallacy,The
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Blob Fallacy article} or
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@uref{https://media.libreplanet.org/u/libreplanet/m/software-enshittification-or-freedom-it-s-not-a-hard-choice,
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a video of a presentation about the same issue at LibrePlanet 2024} by
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Alexandre Oliva that explains the related freedom issues with nonfree
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software provided by the hardware and how they compare with other kind
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of freedom issues (nonfree driver, nonfree firmware loaded
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automatically by Linux, etc).
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@node Limitations
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@section Limitations
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GNU Boot is fairly recent and doesn't have an official release
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yet.
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For the release we plan to have at least some install and upgrade
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instructions for some computers and an easy way for users to use GNU
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Boot.
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Also the latest GNU Boot release candidate was not tested yet with all
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the computers it's supposed to support (we badly need help for that).
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@node Helping GNU Boot
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@chapter Helping GNU Boot
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