The Libreboot maintainer (Leah Rowe) included nonfree software in
Libreboot releases. This lead to the creation of Genuine Libreboot
project (https://libreboot.at). Since this project reused the
Libreboot website from before the inclusion of nonfree software, it
also depended on Untitled, a website generator written in shell
script.
Since this website generator is not packaged in most distributions,
and that the Genuine Libreboot project wanted automatic builds of the
website, I wrote a set of scripts and Makefile to automatize the
download of Untitiled and the build of the website in November
2022. This corresponds to the commit
db0fb8a251 ("Initial import").
Then I improved these script(s) and Makefile(s) over time and they
were merged in the GNU Boot project.
While what is now in website/ is the result of merging the site/ and
website-build/ directories. To do that site/ was renamed to website/
just before the merge. Only website-build/ had a .gitignore.
This is because the website was only built with the website-build code
in subdirectories of website-build/ and/or in temporary volatile
directories, and so this would not create any built file in the git
repository outside of website-build.
Signed-off-by: Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli <GNUtoo@cyberdimension.org>
Acked-by: Adrien 'neox' Bourmault <neox@gnu.org>
Without this commit we have no way of tracking the status of files and
we risk making the same verification too many times.
Ideally we also need procedure and/or tools to make sure omissions
don't get in.
So far the work to update some of the headers on some of the files
required to look at multiple git repositories and even tarball
releases, and in some cases it even required good knowledge of the
provenance of the files to reconstruct the proper history.
In contrast the way we track contributions in git makes it much easier
to fix subsequent omissions of people/dates in the copyright headers.
Signed-off-by: Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli <GNUtoo@cyberdimension.org>
Acked-by: Adrien 'neox' Bourmault <neox@gnu.org>
This has several reasons:
- The GNU Boot project didn't review all the hardware made by Pusi.sm,
especially because Puri.sm also sell hardware that is out of scope
for the GNU Boot project like USB tokens or SIM cards.
- Reducing the scope to just x86 computers made by Puri.sm instead
doesn't work either because there is no context to the
recommendation.
In harm reduction[1], the Freedom Ladder campaign by the FSF[2], and
the FSF giving guide[3], context is taken into account so that people
can make informed choices based on their constraints and choices.
In practice these approaches make statement like "this computer
respects more your freedom than this other one", or "this is
dangerous because of that and you can reduce harm this way, even if
it's far from perfect" and give context to statements to enable
people to really understand what it means.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harm_reduction
[2]https://www.fsf.org/campaigns/campaigns-summaries#ladder
[3]https://www.fsf.org/givingguide/
At the end of the day it's also less work and maintenance to just
remove that hardware recommendation statement than to review specific
computers that GNU Boot doesn't even support.
Signed-off-by: Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli <GNUtoo@cyberdimension.org>
Acked-by: Adrien 'neox' Bourmault <neox@gnu.org>
The idea behind this FAQ entry is to be able to point to it when
people ask us to support additional computers.
This makes sure we don't miss important points in our answers and it
also tries to convey the kind of work needed, including for less
common but important cases like when the code for a computer is found
to work on another one (in that case we badly want to know about it,
especially if there is only documentation work to be done for it).
In addition this kind of question is very common in projects that have
limited hardware support, so that also should help us spending less
time answering that question again and again.
The answer also makes it very clear that GNU Boot is just a
distribution and also shows the kind of work various contributors do
to show that some of them are really easy to do, in the hope that it
could bring up more contributors as well.
The way the entry is written (trying to avoid technical words, while
also speaking about very technical topics) is because it is meant for
a very wide audience that go from less technical users that just want
GNU Boot to work on the computer they have but don't know anything
about hardware support, to contributors to projects like Coreboot and
U-Boot that might just want to also add support for computers they
worked on in GNU Boot.
Wording like "the computer will need to be supported well by other
project" is vague to enable people used to contribute to projects like
Coreboot or U-Boot or even experienced distributions contributors will
understand it as having the strict minimum of out of tree patches,
while also enabling less technical users (that don't know what is an
"out of tree patch") to understand more or less what it means.
Signed-off-by: Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli <GNUtoo@cyberdimension.org>
neox: minor changes (typo and repetition)
Acked-by: Adrien 'neox' Bourmault <neox@gnu.org>
While this doesn't show the complete history of GNU Boot, it is at
least useful for fixing missing copyrights inside copyright headers.
Also I tried adding the first tarball releases of Libreboot, before it
was in git, inside the same git-history.dot and it turned out to be
way too messy as some arrows ended up mostly in the same place making
it impossible to distinguish which arrow went where without using
color or other ways of distinguishing them.
However the textual version of the tarball history turned out to be
easier to read/understand so we used that.
Signed-off-by: Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli <GNUtoo@cyberdimension.org>
neox: minor fix in the commit message
Acked-by: Adrien 'neox' Bourmault <neox@gnu.org>
The status page was wrongly named from the beginning.
The file title (but not the rest of the content) was copied from
git.md in the commit f431e5a164 ("site:
add GNU Boot status page.").
The title of the git.md file was already there in the very first git
commit of the lbwww repository that was merged in GNU Boot in the
commit b42fd2220c ("Merge the website
into GNU Boot"). The history of that file beyond that is unknown.
Signed-off-by: Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli <GNUtoo@cyberdimension.org>
Acked-by: Adrien 'neox' Bourmault <neox@gnu.org>
Adding the product of RYF vendors has several advantages:
- First it enables to later on differenciate vendors computers as some
are known to change the flash chip size for instance.
- It enable users to more easily identify the computer they have.
Having the computers being RYF also make sure that they work without
nonfree software.
Signed-off-by: Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli <GNUtoo@cyberdimension.org>
Acked-by: Adrien 'neox' Bourmault <neox@gnu.org>
Since we now have documentation for using flashrom we can consider
that as having some very generic upgrade instructions.
And since no one tested them we don't know if they work so we can
reflect that.
As for what instructions can be simplified, probably everything can be
simplified at some point, and we need space for mentionning tests of
the upgrade instructions anyway.
Signed-off-by: Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli <GNUtoo@cyberdimension.org>
Acked-by: Adrien 'neox' Bourmault <neox@gnu.org>
At the beginning I tried to describe the GNU Boot project in a single
sentence to be as simple as possible for less technical users.
But then I ended up having to explain again and again to people that
GNU Boot is only a distribution.
We probably had this problem for a very long time, as Libreboot also
had the same issue, and since we inherited all its code and that we
continue its original spirit, we also have the same issue.
And I still had to correct people very recently even long after having
changed the Savannah project description page and having restructured
a bit the build system to look more like packages.
So here I see no other option than changing the front page as well, as
getting this point across is important, especially when we are looking
for contributions, as contributing to a distribution is often easier
than contributing to upstream software.
Signed-off-by: Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli <GNUtoo@cyberdimension.org>
Acked-by: Adrien 'neox' Bourmault <neox@gnu.org>
While this mentions a previously held install party, it encourages
people to organize install parties and shows that they could be
mentioned on the GNU Boot website in some ways.
In addition it also explains the pros and cons of install parties.
Signed-off-by: Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli <GNUtoo@cyberdimension.org>
Acked-by: Adrien 'neox' Bourmault <neox@gnu.org>
This enables to later on have some separation between the first
installation which typically requires to open the computer or at least
need a special procedure like for I945 ThinkPads, with upgrade
instructions that just require to run 'flashrom -p internal -w
<gnuboot-image>'.
Signed-off-by: Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli <GNUtoo@cyberdimension.org>
Acked-by: Adrien 'neox' Bourmault <neox@gnu.org>
This allow to have on the same page different options (Install, Buy
preinstalled) to get GNU Boot, and have a short description of each
option as it is not necessarily obvious which option can work for a
given user.
In addition it also enables to warn people just using 'Download' to
read the documentation as it is not obvious what to do once a user
downloaded an archive with images inside.
And finally it also allow to add more options later on.
Signed-off-by: Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli <GNUtoo@cyberdimension.org>
Acked-by: Adrien 'neox' Bourmault <neox@gnu.org>
It's a good idea not to mix markdown files with other file types as
this facilitates a lot the migration to haunt.
In addition it also helps separating these dumps from the general
website as they are also useful without the website.
Signed-off-by: Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli <GNUtoo@cyberdimension.org>
Acked-by: Adrien 'neox' Bourmault <neox@gnu.org>
It's a good idea not to mix markdown files with other file types as
this facilitates a lot the migration to haunt.
In addition it also helps separating these dumps from the general
website as they are also useful without the website.
Signed-off-by: Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli <GNUtoo@cyberdimension.org>
Acked-by: Adrien 'neox' Bourmault <neox@gnu.org>
Before being merged with the commit
dc6e1f32c1 ("Import website-build to
build the GNU Boot website."), website-build was a separate git
repository.
And so, even after the merge, until the commit
20d122e94a ("website-build: use website
from local git repository."), it still worked in the same way and
still downloaded the website from git.
This prevented merging the website and website-build directories
together as the GNU Boot repository also needed to be a valid Untitled
website repository as well.
Now after this commit, the website is built from the same git tree, so
we can simply adjust the build scripts to be able to move things
around.
In addition of making things more clear for contributors, it also
simplify the migration to haunt as with haunt we typically have the
haunt.cfg (and the autotools build code if needed) code in the top
directory and the markdown files in a subdirectory.
Signed-off-by: Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli <GNUtoo@cyberdimension.org>
Acked-by: Adrien 'neox' Bourmault <neox@gnu.org>
First this is more consistent as we already have a website-build
directory. Then it is also useful for migrating to haunt as 'haunt
build' puts the generated website in a 'site/' directory, so without
this rename, when the migration would be complete we'd have site/site
instead of website/site.
Signed-off-by: Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli <GNUtoo@cyberdimension.org>
Acked-by: Adrien 'neox' Bourmault <neox@gnu.org>
Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli
Anton McClure