Ages ago someone wrote a bash script that would calculate your "stallman score", essentially checking the license of every package in your system.
absolutely-proprietary?
nmap isn't Foss?!?
From absolutely-proprietary:
"the FSF considers the v7.9x license to be non-free - however, the previous license was apparently non-free also"
That's all I know
Well, we need that back!
It's called vrms (virtual RMS) and Debian at least packages it.
7 out of 705 installed packages are non-free packages on my RPi server.
It's called check-dfsg-status since Stallmann stepped down after his controversial statements in Minsky's Epstein scandal.
TIL
đŸ˜®
Id say around 80% since I use a lot of foss programs and only use linux/android/openwrt/brother printers. The other 20% is random proprietary stuff like steam I guess to be generous.
Why Obsidian when there's so many good foss note-taking apps?
You could list it, but I tried to migrate Obsidian to Logseq. For now, I have no time. I mostly write MarkDown though.
As much as I can get it, and more every year.
All my computers run Linux exclusively. Gaming desktop, personal laptop, Steam Deck, work laptop, and all my servers in my home lab.
Hypervisor is XCP-ng, VMs are a mix of Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, and some random other Linux distros for testing and experimenting.
My NAS is a TrueNAS Core box.
I'm in the process of switching my router to PFSense.
Phone is a Pixel 6a with GrapheneOS.
Email, VPN, and cloud storage is Proton.
Password manager is Bit Warden.
Office docs are all Libre Office & Only Office.
The only non-FOSS software I use constantly is Discord and Steam, and of course, most of the games I play. On my phone I have majority FOSS apps for everyday stuff, but some things are still proprietary.
Seems you also use a bit of freeBSD in your setup besides Linux. Still FOSS though!
What are you recommendation of decent NAS with freeBSD?
I have no such advice. I use a Linux basedd NAS myself.
What NAS do you use?
Debian-based custom built thing. Nothing special.
Debian seems so versatile.
Truenas core is dead, long live freebsd
Libreboot + GNU/Linux-Libre Guix System
Please, more details
Irony? Hahah
No I genuinely want to know
Well for libreboot i had to program the bios eprom (SOIC-8 SPI programable). For that i used a chinese CH341a programmer which didn't work (IMPORTANT: first i had to fix the chinese design hardware problem that the ch341a has were it uses 3.3v as vdd but 5v as high level for digital spi signals) because of the shitty cables of the kit. I tried with a rpi pico with the same cables and also didn't work. Then i literally knitted cables one by one in each of the eprom pins in order to program it and it worked. My advice: don't use cheap chinese SOIC clips/cables. The CH341a can be fixed but if you can, also don't use it. They have a bug in their hardware design and they don't fix it.
After that i just installed Guix system iso in a pen and proceeded with the installation. I did a full encryption install (FULL all /boot included) because with libreboot you can have grub in your eeprom which is awesome. So basically i have a permanent bootloader that launches at start (besides all the other stuff libreboot does about neutering intel management engine, etc)
Then i followed more or less this in order to create the config file of the system. Once the config file is created you gust run guix and it does everything: configuration, compiling software if needed, etc.
And basically that's it. Well i also searched for a pci wifi card that had free software drivers in h-node.
Libreboot is very cool. You can change bios "variables", like for example modifiying your laptop hardcoded company MAC address for a random one (which I did). You have to do that when you are compiling the image that you will write into the eeprom.
Ah and btw Linux-Libre is just the default kernel for guix system. Basically 0 bloat. There are people channels that have guix system with bloat, but Guix by default is bloat free (well in reality only if you install libreboot too like i did :) ). That's why i bought a libre software compatible wifi card.
But Guix system can also be build with Linux, systemd ( the initd is shepherd) and other stuff if you configure it like so. But in order to do that you will have to read the Guix manual probably.
Basically a hobby project. I wanted to have a fully free computer. So i bought a x220 on ebay and did all that to have the fully free laptop.
Guix can be used as a kind of package manager in any other distro. And it has super cool features. It's worth checking out just for that. It follows the classical GNU filosofy of "hack with your computer as much and deeper as you want".
Guix system is perfect if you want to mess around, because you can just revert back in time your whole system.
Saved
100% except the damn firmware and things I can't change
Currently running majority FLOSS, and glad for the excellent options that these very capable people have released.
Desktops, laptops, HTPC:
Trisquel GNU/Linux on Libreboot BIOS hardware
--//--
Phones and tablets are:
GrapheneOS + Fdroid only apps
--//--
Rockbox audio players
(+ Open Tunes from FMA, Argofox, CC netlabels, jamendo, bandcamp etc)
--//--
Gadgetbridge + Amazfit Bip (watch)
[Looking to switch out this watch for a FLOSS smartwatch like: pinetime or bangle.js]
--//--
and dd-wrt on the router
This guy has mad FOSS cred. I bet even his socks are made of free range organic open source wool released under a Creative Commons attribution share-alike licence.
Seriously though, that sounds like an amazing setup. I always wanted to mess with gadget bridge some more. I have a number of old MiBand devices lying around as well as a Bip. The third party apps for that thing had more features than almost every fitness tracker I've had potentially even including my Garmin watch. What tools do you use to analyze/review/visualize the gadget bridge data?
Thanks for the props :]
I usually look at the session graph data on Gadgetbridge, or export a bike GPS track to OSMand to look more in depth at position, height, speed etc.
OpenWRT is going to be better than DD-WRT. It is certainly more flexible
Thanks, I was checking both before going with ddwrt.
Looks like OpenWRT has more options and less hand-holding. Would that be right?
Yes but the wiki is very solid. Also the basic functionality doesn't require much to setup. Just make sure you set the WiFi country
I don't run Linux anymore, though this should change sometime next year. I use Blender and Krita for work, QOwnNotes for note-taking, Firefox for the web, QBittorrent for sharing holiday films, etc. For image editing I use Affinity, probably the only notable proprietary program on my system apart from Windows.
Mostly
I still have Intel WiFi and a phone which requires firmware to work correctly.
I also recently installed Lego star wars in Bottles for fun. I also use the web a lot which uses non free JavaScript.
đŸ˜®đŸ˜® JS is non-free?
The engine probably is free, but the code it runs often is not.
isnt all JS technically code-available though?
so at least we have that going for it.
Even then, it might be minified or even obfuscated
You can't run, study, modify and distribute it
A good 90% I'd say. All my devices run Linux (NixOS laptop, Ubuntu server, LineageOS phone).
Non-FOSS stuff:
AMD GPU in my Framework 16 laptop means the only unfree package on my laptop is Steam.
The proprietary apps I do run on my phone are TooGoodToGo and my bank as I'm not aware of alternatives.
I wear a Pebble Time Steel smartwatch, also not aware of any alternatives.
PS5 controller firmware has no replacement.
I don't browse the surface web a lot and when I do I tend to disable JS, so I avoid most of the nonfree JS.
I have no social media accounts besides Mastodon, Matrix, and Lemmy, which are all free :)
As an extension, all my close family runs Linux on their computers, as it ended up being lower maintenance than setting them up with Windows when time came to upgrade.
For watches you can use the Pine time or BangleJS. The Banglejs doesn't do as well in terms of privacy and freedom but it is better than nothing.
As for banking I usually do it either in person or on there website.
How would BangleJs be worse in terms of privacy? You can run both with gadgetbridge, so no cloud data necessary.
The website uses google maps
I wore a Pinetime for a while, sadly the touchscreen can't beat the Pebble's buttons. I'd buy a Pinetime with buttons and a non-touch reflective LCD in a heartbeat though!
I was looking at BangleJS or Watchy as replacements but I'm really unsure about the durability and how usable they'd be (I need just the time and notifications, maps/navigation is a big plus tho).
Got multiple machines, but I think my most FOSS setup is a corebooted Thinkpad X230. The ME firmware was stripped, leaving it non-functional after the initialization. I replaced the WiFi card with an Atheros one that doesn't require non-free firmware. The GPU is by Intel Ivy Bridge, so no need for proprietary driver. Currently running Debian on it.
With that said, there are some components I couldn't get by:
the EC firmware is pretty much a blackbox, even though I was able to unlock some part to make it work with aftermarket batteries
the graphic ROM may still be proprietary (gonna have to recheck what my machine got currently) -- FOSS is an option as well but with less support
even though non-functional, the ME is still on -- god knows what this thing does exactly
CPU microcode
The rest of the components are pretty well-documented by the community if not by the OEMs themselves.
I would put 95% for this specific setup. However, if counting everything I got, not even close, as I need some proprietary components for living.
For example, my company gave me a newer Thinkpad to do work, which thankfully I got to install Linux on. I still have to run enterprise stuff from time to time, most of which are far from FOSS.
And don't get me started on tax form submission.
My PC is mostly foss, the exceptions being that I use YouTube and discord. still working on my phone though.
Nearly 100%. All Linux and AMD. The biggest part that isn't is BIOS. As far as programs go I can think of almost nothing I use that isn't FOSS. I guess Discord.
1 FreeBSD server with zfs mirror for storage and various server software
1 FreeBSD laptop for development
1 Linux laptop for software that doesn't support FreeBSD
1 Linux desktop for work.
The rest of the family is 100% windows though :/
It's just the firmware, my work-necessary programs, and steam.
I love arch, but i'm planning on moving to atomic fedora eventually, but I use a bunch of niche things because i'm an early adopter
i'll switch to fedora atomic when pwvucontrol, tofi, hyprland, hyprland-autoname-workspaces, citrix workspace (work necessary), notiflut-land, bato, wljoywake, wayland-pipewire-idle-inhibit, ananicy-cpp, easyeffects, wl-mirror, gtk3-classic, keyd, iwgtk, qtalarm, kvantum and subliminal are all available, haven't checked which are yet
couple of those (pwvucontrol and notiflut-land) aren't even in the AUR yet so it'll be a while.
Excluding hardware (microcode, UEFI, etc); within my Linux system, the only proprietary software I have installed are Nvidia drivers and Steam (installed via flatpak).
When I first made the switch to Linux, I was actually shocked at the minimal amount of proprietary software I actually used/needed.
Pretty FOSS?
PC - Thinkpad T14s Gen 4: EndeavourOS, Firefox and Thunderbird with the Proton suite of things such as Mail, Pass and VPN - I do pay for them but I think it's worth it.
Phone - Pixel 8 with GrapheneOS and as many F-Droid apps as possible. Proton apps for Mail, Pass, Drive, VPN. Cromite browser. The only that aren't are probably my banking apps, but I could always switch to web I guess.
I think my biggest hurdle is a Map app that has traffic data that isn't Google maps.
Have you tried OrganicMaps? You can download the map for your state (or states) and it works extremely well offline, with the one downside, being not all specific addresses have been uploaded... but you can sure find the street and the UI is unmatched for FOSS map apps.
It's hella foss!
Edit: I didn't see the community, sorry, feel free to disregard this comment lol
I still use services like Spotify, FB Messenger, and Play services for some of my banking apps. I'm a bit new to this whole privacy thing and custom ROMs, but so far it feels good. When I buy a computer I'll install Linux on it.
Libre hardware:
Turris Omnia router with their OpenWrt-based distro. Bought in 2017, upgraded to Wifi-6 in 2022. Great product.
3x system76 laptops with Coreboot and DebĂan
The desktop is a system76 darter pro with a broken hinge, so it's connected to a widescreen monitor and external mouse, keyboard. Also DebĂan.
The non FOSS systems are:
HP Dev One running proprietary UEFI, and Pop!_OS
a couple of Pixel phones running stock OS
an iPad Pro with keyboard from 2018
X201 Thinkpad with AFFS upgrade running DebĂan. Connected to some AudioEngine speakers and Spotify, this is our media player.
a Thinkpad T43p with XP for Age of Empires and Freecell
an Apple TV.
Almost everything. All Linux machines, SO included. Self-hosted most everything for a loooooong time, but with Obtainium now I'm really close to ditching the Play Store, too.
OS
Linux on my laptop, had hackintoshed a 2015 MacBook Pro before to run macOS Sonoma, and that ran on this device before
Windows on my desktop to play games from studios that are owned by a certain Chinese investment company starting on T.
stock Android on my SM-A536B since LineageOS isn't ported (yet) to this device.
(Semi)Libre Software
Zed
Eternity for Lemmy
Tubular (NewPipe + Sponsorblock and ReturnYTDislike)
Tusky for Mastodon
Rust (the language)
Proprietary software
GSuite (for collaboration)
Games and game launchers (namely Steam on PC and on laptop and Epic shitty games launcher on PC)
I'd consider my setup 8/10 FOSS.
Why is Zed (Semi)Libre Software? Do you know something that I don't?
The collaboration feature + the inclusion of GitHub login and Copilot. Though those can be stripped out if you don't want them.
Ah, I see, I thought so.
On my home PC everything is FOSS. I'm a serious hobby user of Inkscape and GIMP. No advantage to using commercial alternatives.
Work PC is all commercial software. For me FOSS CAD doesn't come close.
I run bone stock default Fedora.
On my main profile on GrapheneOS there are 7 closed source apps and 1 self build technically closed source (for now) all out of total 71 apps.
All FOSS except Nvidia drivers and processor microcode!
next graphics card will definitely be an AMD
UEFI?
damn you got me
Linux desktop with an Nvidia GPU, two Linux laptops, android phone. I'm struggling to think of any closed source productivity apps I still use, and I play games from Steam. NAS is running whatever Synology crap it came with, I haven't tried fucking with the firmware on my Epson, my 3D printer runs Marlin and my laser engraver runs GRBL.
Laptop is foss except bios. Desktop has apu and wifi firmware.
Like sub 10% maybe.
Phone 1: iPhone
Phone 2: Android (pixel 4, stock rom)
Desktop 1: Windows
Desktop 2: Mac OS
Laptop 1: Windows
Laptop 2: Mac OS.
Laptop 3: Windows/KDE Neon, no attention paid to whether or not the drivers are foss.
Server: Proxmox with Debian and Truenas VMs.
Router: pfSense.
I just use what works for me, and what license the software uses is not at all a factor in that choice.
Is there a reason to us pfsense insteaof opnsense?
No.
95%
paypal, linguee and banking apps
Production/Laptop
Framework laptop with x86 Intel CPU, running OpenBSD. All drivers are free, non-free firmware includes intel, inteldrm, iwx (intel wireless device), uvideo (webcam), vmm (virtual machine). BIOS/UEFI is closed.
Hopefully intel, inteldrm, and vmm firmware can be removed after I switch to the RISC-V mainboard that is releasing for the Framework 13 inch soon. iwx firmware can be removed as soon as OpenBSD has better atheros drivers, whenever that patch arrives (or whatever other foss wireless card comes along). uvideo firmware might be unnecessary, but I haven't checked.
FOSS score: Medium-Low, after switching mainboard, Good.
Phone
OG Pinephone running postmarketOS. I don't think there's any non-free firmware (GPU maybe?). ARM64 CPU, only closed firmware I know of is the modem, which I've replaced with a free version here. Don't know about the UEFI/BIOS.
FOSS score: Good, Medium if UEFI/BIOS is closed or there is non-free firmware.
Gaming
Steam Deck, x86 AMD cpu, running proprietary SteamOS. May replace the OS at some point if a good alternative comes along, as SteamOS's immutable design and lack of real package manager besides flatpak annoys me.
FOSS score: Terrible, will always be Terrible because of all the games, even after replacing the OS.
RISC V probably doesn't have the performance you will expect. It is equivalent to a budget smart phone from a few years ago
Honestly, good enough for my usecases.
Linux on all my computers and GrapheneOS on my Google Pixel 6a with 99.8% FOSS applications. Maybe 96% FOSS softwares on my stationary computer and 100% on my laptops.
With GrapheneOS do you still get the same quality photos as you would with the stock OS?
I use Open Camera and the quality is very good. Especially the night mode! What you see with your eyes in a dark room with the TV on, that's what you will see in the photo. Not the same quality on the TV in the photo, of course, but very close.
Just a +1 for Open Camera - it's a great bit of software.
Indeed. Far the best camera for Android I've ever used. Kinda addicted to the timestamp/watermark/something, though, haha! Mighty good feature!
A bunch of older Chromebooks now running a Free firmware, and Debian.
Which chromebooks? if you don’t mind my asking… thinking of going this route, but I’ve read not all chromebooks are created equal wrt installing Linux.
I had some chromebooks from 2014 to 2019, and these specifically worked with the MrChromebox's firmware. There's a list on his website about the models supported.
aside from my kernel not very much
Did a fresh install of linux mint recently, because of that a good chunk of my software has been FOSS, however, when it comes to all the gaming related stuff I've installed (drivers, clients, etc.) its been a hit or miss with more proprietary software then i'd like.
Will say, I've struggled for a while to find a good open source music player for local files, I'd love some recommendations (currently trying Rhythmbox but I don't feel I'll love it)
Try Strawberry, Audacious, and Lollypop. There's a lot of options, it just depends on what you're looking for. I could give better suggestions if I knew what features are important to you.
I don't know if I've used Strawberry, but I used Clementine, from which it was forked for several years. Like OP, Rhythmbox wasn't doing it for me. Clementine/Strawberry is definitely worth a look.
I try to use FOSS as much as possible, but I am not willing to give up video games, so I do have steam installed. I also need discord for communication with friends I am playing with. I only use these two on my desktop computer. On my laptop I don't have any proprietary software running in userspace, but of course it still has proprietary firmware blobs and proprietary UEFI firmware. I also have an old Thinkpad X220 running coreboot and with ME disabled (HAP bit set, ME technically still runs, but halts after hardware initialization) and unnecessary ME components stripped using me_cleaner. And my home server also runs coreboot with ME "disabled" and stripped but it has a BMC with proprietary supermicro firmware and an LSI HBA that also requires firmware.
Quite near 100%. The device driver for the DVB-S receiver card is my exception.
Daily computing is mostly FOSS programs and my laptop is sold with Linux preinstalled (though I bought the higher spec Windows version and installed Linux myself. Cloud is FOSS, self-hosted in the public cloud (until I get fiber). Phone is rooted Android w/ FOSS apps wherever they meet my needs. I'm about 50% through degoogling and de-Microsofting. Ereader is KOReader (FOSS) running on old Kindle brand hardware. Keyboard is Ergodox Ez which I think the firmware is FOSS. Smarthome is still Smartthings which is not FOSS.
I'm going to give myself a C- 70% FOSS
You shouldn't use root on Android. It throws the security model out the window. Just run something without google
Going to probably try this after I build my pihole and I can VPN home for ad blocking. Currently I need root to avoid seeing ads.
Can't you just use ublock origin?
The browser ad on doesn't work in apps, and if they have a blocker outside of that, it probably uses a VPN on the loopback interface to strip out the ads. I run a VPN a fair bit, so I would only be adblocking when I'm not on the VPN. Are there any non-root methods that can do full system ad blocking other than the VPN thing?
Why not set Adguard as private DNS?
Don't use apps with ads. They are a privacy and freedom risk anyway. Use apps from F-droid.
Hard to pin a number on it, percentage-wise.
Desktop and laptop are both running Linux.
Chromebook wiped and running Linux.
Most software, but definitely not all. Steam, Resolve being the two biggest non-foss items on my desktop, while my ex-Chromebook has a proprietary screenwriting program, as well as OnlyOffice instead of LibreOffice because I need much better Excel compatibility for work and LO still isn't quite there for it.
Phone android. But not entirely de-googled. Replaced drive with syncthing, keep with Joplin, photos, phone, and messenger with their Fossify equivalents and disabled the originals. Replaced gboard with heliboard, etc...
But can't/won't completely replace the OS yet because both google pay and android auto are essential to me and getting them working on most replacements is still a royal pain in the butt.
So let's call it 80%, maybe a bit more?
Increasingly so over time. Will try to install coreboot on my laptop soon. I avoid proprietary blobs where possible too but for stuff like the kernel, proprietary blobs are kinda unavoidable if you want a fully functional system. Tbf I've not tried linux-libre but I just assume it won't agree with some of my tower PC's hardware.
Aside from low-level stuff, I do still use Steam (and the proprietary games on there) and Discord—Steam cause all my games are there and it's convenient, and Discord cause a few of my friend groups primarily talk over Discord. Been considering setting up a Matrix bridge for Discord but I don't think that meaningfully achieves anything since it'll still all be on Discord's servers which are proprietary. I also occasionally install proprietary software to read proprietary file formats and would usually uninstall once I'm done reading the file.
I have a raspberry pi as a print server but that’s about it. I tried a few distros on an old laptop but none really worked that well.
Arch on every box in the house, including the primary router. Mixed Intel and AMD. Openwrt on every AP (unfortunately Mellanox and MediaTek firmware blobs for the radios). GrapheneOS on my daily and LineageOS on my legacy phone.
Aside from occasional games, I don't install anything I don't have the source to. My phone is the only exception, for apps required to interface with the rest of the world.
What is your "legacy phone"?
Ah, my last phone that no longer receives any updates. Pixel 2XL. Just keeping it around because parting with electronics is difficult.
I wish it was more, but the paid/closed options in a few categories are just significantly better than anything foss
What are those categories/apps?
I try but games are important to me, though I don't play modern games these days. I al as o make an exception for speaking/playing with friends.
Mostly FOSS locally, but I rely on some proprietary software where there are gaps in the FOSS ecosystem.
I have all the blobs, I like my hardware to work
Ages ago someone wrote a bash script that would calculate your "stallman score", essentially checking the license of every package in your system.
absolutely-proprietary?
nmap isn't Foss?!?
From absolutely-proprietary:
"the FSF considers the v7.9x license to be non-free - however, the previous license was apparently non-free also"
That's all I know
Well, we need that back!
It's called vrms (virtual RMS) and Debian at least packages it.
7 out of 705 installed packages are non-free packages on my RPi server.
It's called check-dfsg-status since Stallmann stepped down after his controversial statements in Minsky's Epstein scandal.
TIL
đŸ˜®
Id say around 80% since I use a lot of foss programs and only use linux/android/openwrt/brother printers. The other 20% is random proprietary stuff like steam I guess to be generous.
FOSS-y
I don't know what to say about people who I told about lichess but still think chess.com is better
Maybe just say why it is better:
So, in summary, it's not hyped up (marketing), clean, no tracking, free chess.com experience.
I don't know what are the advantages' chess.com has over Lichess right now. The chess should be free.
normies: but le world class chess streamer I know plays on chess.com!
Your response: because it makes him money especially when he has Chess.com logo hidden somewhere when he streams.
Chess dot com tells me what opening I played
(Because Lord knows I don't)
Lichess does tell too.
Not during the play though, only during analysis
Ah I see so you can look up in game what are the best responses for your opening. Smart.
Why todoist and not tasks.org
I cannot get the same features on the desktop so it's synced up. Besides that only Taks.org on Android is even better than Todoist.
I use nextcloud for tasks and then use tasks.org on android, not sure what features you need, but that has worked great for me
I have to try NextCloud Tasks then. I'm also considering Vikunja.
Why Obsidian when there's so many good foss note-taking apps?
You could list it, but I tried to migrate Obsidian to Logseq. For now, I have no time. I mostly write MarkDown though.
As much as I can get it, and more every year.
All my computers run Linux exclusively. Gaming desktop, personal laptop, Steam Deck, work laptop, and all my servers in my home lab.
Hypervisor is XCP-ng, VMs are a mix of Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, and some random other Linux distros for testing and experimenting.
My NAS is a TrueNAS Core box.
I'm in the process of switching my router to PFSense.
Phone is a Pixel 6a with GrapheneOS.
Email, VPN, and cloud storage is Proton.
Password manager is Bit Warden.
Office docs are all Libre Office & Only Office.
The only non-FOSS software I use constantly is Discord and Steam, and of course, most of the games I play. On my phone I have majority FOSS apps for everyday stuff, but some things are still proprietary.
Seems you also use a bit of freeBSD in your setup besides Linux. Still FOSS though!
What are you recommendation of decent NAS with freeBSD?
I have no such advice. I use a Linux basedd NAS myself.
What NAS do you use?
Debian-based custom built thing. Nothing special.
Debian seems so versatile.
Truenas core is dead, long live freebsd
Libreboot + GNU/Linux-Libre Guix System
Please, more details
Irony? Hahah
No I genuinely want to know
Well for libreboot i had to program the bios eprom (SOIC-8 SPI programable). For that i used a chinese CH341a programmer which didn't work (IMPORTANT: first i had to fix the chinese design hardware problem that the ch341a has were it uses 3.3v as vdd but 5v as high level for digital spi signals) because of the shitty cables of the kit. I tried with a rpi pico with the same cables and also didn't work. Then i literally knitted cables one by one in each of the eprom pins in order to program it and it worked. My advice: don't use cheap chinese SOIC clips/cables. The CH341a can be fixed but if you can, also don't use it. They have a bug in their hardware design and they don't fix it.
After that i just installed Guix system iso in a pen and proceeded with the installation. I did a full encryption install (FULL all /boot included) because with libreboot you can have grub in your eeprom which is awesome. So basically i have a permanent bootloader that launches at start (besides all the other stuff libreboot does about neutering intel management engine, etc)
Then i followed more or less this in order to create the config file of the system. Once the config file is created you gust run guix and it does everything: configuration, compiling software if needed, etc.
And basically that's it. Well i also searched for a pci wifi card that had free software drivers in h-node.
Libreboot is very cool. You can change bios "variables", like for example modifiying your laptop hardcoded company MAC address for a random one (which I did). You have to do that when you are compiling the image that you will write into the eeprom.
Ah and btw Linux-Libre is just the default kernel for guix system. Basically 0 bloat. There are people channels that have guix system with bloat, but Guix by default is bloat free (well in reality only if you install libreboot too like i did :) ). That's why i bought a libre software compatible wifi card.
But Guix system can also be build with Linux, systemd ( the initd is shepherd) and other stuff if you configure it like so. But in order to do that you will have to read the Guix manual probably.
Basically a hobby project. I wanted to have a fully free computer. So i bought a x220 on ebay and did all that to have the fully free laptop.
Guix can be used as a kind of package manager in any other distro. And it has super cool features. It's worth checking out just for that. It follows the classical GNU filosofy of "hack with your computer as much and deeper as you want".
Guix system is perfect if you want to mess around, because you can just revert back in time your whole system.
Saved
100% except the damn firmware and things I can't change
Currently running majority FLOSS, and glad for the excellent options that these very capable people have released.
Desktops, laptops, HTPC:
Trisquel GNU/Linux on Libreboot BIOS hardware
--//--
Phones and tablets are:
GrapheneOS + Fdroid only apps
--//--
Rockbox audio players
(+ Open Tunes from FMA, Argofox, CC netlabels, jamendo, bandcamp etc)
--//--
Gadgetbridge + Amazfit Bip (watch)
[Looking to switch out this watch for a FLOSS smartwatch like: pinetime or bangle.js]
--//--
and dd-wrt on the router
This guy has mad FOSS cred. I bet even his socks are made of free range organic open source wool released under a Creative Commons attribution share-alike licence.
Seriously though, that sounds like an amazing setup. I always wanted to mess with gadget bridge some more. I have a number of old MiBand devices lying around as well as a Bip. The third party apps for that thing had more features than almost every fitness tracker I've had potentially even including my Garmin watch. What tools do you use to analyze/review/visualize the gadget bridge data?
Thanks for the props :]
I usually look at the session graph data on Gadgetbridge, or export a bike GPS track to OSMand to look more in depth at position, height, speed etc.
OpenWRT is going to be better than DD-WRT. It is certainly more flexible
Thanks, I was checking both before going with ddwrt.
Looks like OpenWRT has more options and less hand-holding. Would that be right?
Yes but the wiki is very solid. Also the basic functionality doesn't require much to setup. Just make sure you set the WiFi country
I don't run Linux anymore, though this should change sometime next year. I use Blender and Krita for work, QOwnNotes for note-taking, Firefox for the web, QBittorrent for sharing holiday films, etc. For image editing I use Affinity, probably the only notable proprietary program on my system apart from Windows.
Mostly
I still have Intel WiFi and a phone which requires firmware to work correctly.
I also recently installed Lego star wars in Bottles for fun. I also use the web a lot which uses non free JavaScript.
đŸ˜®đŸ˜® JS is non-free?
The engine probably is free, but the code it runs often is not.
isnt all JS technically code-available though?
so at least we have that going for it.
Even then, it might be minified or even obfuscated
You can't run, study, modify and distribute it
A good 90% I'd say. All my devices run Linux (NixOS laptop, Ubuntu server, LineageOS phone).
Non-FOSS stuff:
I don't browse the surface web a lot and when I do I tend to disable JS, so I avoid most of the nonfree JS. I have no social media accounts besides Mastodon, Matrix, and Lemmy, which are all free :)
As an extension, all my close family runs Linux on their computers, as it ended up being lower maintenance than setting them up with Windows when time came to upgrade.
For watches you can use the Pine time or BangleJS. The Banglejs doesn't do as well in terms of privacy and freedom but it is better than nothing.
As for banking I usually do it either in person or on there website.
How would BangleJs be worse in terms of privacy? You can run both with gadgetbridge, so no cloud data necessary.
The website uses google maps
I wore a Pinetime for a while, sadly the touchscreen can't beat the Pebble's buttons. I'd buy a Pinetime with buttons and a non-touch reflective LCD in a heartbeat though! I was looking at BangleJS or Watchy as replacements but I'm really unsure about the durability and how usable they'd be (I need just the time and notifications, maps/navigation is a big plus tho).
Got multiple machines, but I think my most FOSS setup is a corebooted Thinkpad X230. The ME firmware was stripped, leaving it non-functional after the initialization. I replaced the WiFi card with an Atheros one that doesn't require non-free firmware. The GPU is by Intel Ivy Bridge, so no need for proprietary driver. Currently running Debian on it.
With that said, there are some components I couldn't get by:
The rest of the components are pretty well-documented by the community if not by the OEMs themselves.
I would put 95% for this specific setup. However, if counting everything I got, not even close, as I need some proprietary components for living.
For example, my company gave me a newer Thinkpad to do work, which thankfully I got to install Linux on. I still have to run enterprise stuff from time to time, most of which are far from FOSS.
And don't get me started on tax form submission.
My PC is mostly foss, the exceptions being that I use YouTube and discord. still working on my phone though.
Nearly 100%. All Linux and AMD. The biggest part that isn't is BIOS. As far as programs go I can think of almost nothing I use that isn't FOSS. I guess Discord.
1 FreeBSD server with zfs mirror for storage and various server software
1 FreeBSD laptop for development
1 Linux laptop for software that doesn't support FreeBSD
1 Linux desktop for work.
The rest of the family is 100% windows though :/
It's just the firmware, my work-necessary programs, and steam.
I love arch, but i'm planning on moving to atomic fedora eventually, but I use a bunch of niche things because i'm an early adopter
i'll switch to fedora atomic when pwvucontrol, tofi, hyprland, hyprland-autoname-workspaces, citrix workspace (work necessary), notiflut-land, bato, wljoywake, wayland-pipewire-idle-inhibit, ananicy-cpp, easyeffects, wl-mirror, gtk3-classic, keyd, iwgtk, qtalarm, kvantum and subliminal are all available, haven't checked which are yet
couple of those (pwvucontrol and notiflut-land) aren't even in the AUR yet so it'll be a while.
Excluding hardware (microcode, UEFI, etc); within my Linux system, the only proprietary software I have installed are Nvidia drivers and Steam (installed via flatpak). When I first made the switch to Linux, I was actually shocked at the minimal amount of proprietary software I actually used/needed.
Pretty FOSS?
PC - Thinkpad T14s Gen 4: EndeavourOS, Firefox and Thunderbird with the Proton suite of things such as Mail, Pass and VPN - I do pay for them but I think it's worth it.
Phone - Pixel 8 with GrapheneOS and as many F-Droid apps as possible. Proton apps for Mail, Pass, Drive, VPN. Cromite browser. The only that aren't are probably my banking apps, but I could always switch to web I guess.
I think my biggest hurdle is a Map app that has traffic data that isn't Google maps.
Have you tried OrganicMaps? You can download the map for your state (or states) and it works extremely well offline, with the one downside, being not all specific addresses have been uploaded... but you can sure find the street and the UI is unmatched for FOSS map apps.
It's hella foss!
Edit: I didn't see the community, sorry, feel free to disregard this comment lol
Phone OS: GrapheneOS Calendar: Fossify Calendar Files: filen.io Gallery: Fossify Gallery E-mail: ProtonMail Notes: Notesnook Keyboard: HeliBoard Maps: OrganicMaps Passwords: Proton Pass RSS: Feeder Step counter: Forest YouTube frontend: NewPipe, FreeTube Weather: Breezy weather
I still use services like Spotify, FB Messenger, and Play services for some of my banking apps. I'm a bit new to this whole privacy thing and custom ROMs, but so far it feels good. When I buy a computer I'll install Linux on it.
Libre hardware:
The non FOSS systems are:
Almost everything. All Linux machines, SO included. Self-hosted most everything for a loooooong time, but with Obtainium now I'm really close to ditching the Play Store, too.
OS
(Semi)Libre Software
Proprietary software
shittygames launcher on PC)I'd consider my setup 8/10 FOSS.
Why is Zed (Semi)Libre Software? Do you know something that I don't?
The collaboration feature + the inclusion of GitHub login and Copilot. Though those can be stripped out if you don't want them.
Ah, I see, I thought so.
On my home PC everything is FOSS. I'm a serious hobby user of Inkscape and GIMP. No advantage to using commercial alternatives.
Work PC is all commercial software. For me FOSS CAD doesn't come close.
I run bone stock default Fedora.
On my main profile on GrapheneOS there are 7 closed source apps and 1 self build technically closed source (for now) all out of total 71 apps.
All FOSS except Nvidia drivers and processor microcode!
next graphics card will definitely be an AMD
UEFI?
damn you got me
Linux desktop with an Nvidia GPU, two Linux laptops, android phone. I'm struggling to think of any closed source productivity apps I still use, and I play games from Steam. NAS is running whatever Synology crap it came with, I haven't tried fucking with the firmware on my Epson, my 3D printer runs Marlin and my laser engraver runs GRBL.
Laptop is foss except bios. Desktop has apu and wifi firmware.
Like sub 10% maybe.
Phone 1: iPhone
Phone 2: Android (pixel 4, stock rom)
Desktop 1: Windows
Desktop 2: Mac OS
Laptop 1: Windows
Laptop 2: Mac OS.
Laptop 3: Windows/KDE Neon, no attention paid to whether or not the drivers are foss.
Server: Proxmox with Debian and Truenas VMs.
Router: pfSense.
I just use what works for me, and what license the software uses is not at all a factor in that choice.
Is there a reason to us pfsense insteaof opnsense?
No.
95% paypal, linguee and banking apps
Production/Laptop
Framework laptop with x86 Intel CPU, running OpenBSD. All drivers are free, non-free firmware includes intel, inteldrm, iwx (intel wireless device), uvideo (webcam), vmm (virtual machine). BIOS/UEFI is closed.
Hopefully intel, inteldrm, and vmm firmware can be removed after I switch to the RISC-V mainboard that is releasing for the Framework 13 inch soon. iwx firmware can be removed as soon as OpenBSD has better atheros drivers, whenever that patch arrives (or whatever other foss wireless card comes along). uvideo firmware might be unnecessary, but I haven't checked.
FOSS score: Medium-Low, after switching mainboard, Good.
Phone
OG Pinephone running postmarketOS. I don't think there's any non-free firmware (GPU maybe?). ARM64 CPU, only closed firmware I know of is the modem, which I've replaced with a free version here. Don't know about the UEFI/BIOS.
FOSS score: Good, Medium if UEFI/BIOS is closed or there is non-free firmware.
Gaming
Steam Deck, x86 AMD cpu, running proprietary SteamOS. May replace the OS at some point if a good alternative comes along, as SteamOS's immutable design and lack of real package manager besides flatpak annoys me.
FOSS score: Terrible, will always be Terrible because of all the games, even after replacing the OS.
RISC V probably doesn't have the performance you will expect. It is equivalent to a budget smart phone from a few years ago
Honestly, good enough for my usecases.
Linux on all my computers and GrapheneOS on my Google Pixel 6a with 99.8% FOSS applications. Maybe 96% FOSS softwares on my stationary computer and 100% on my laptops.
With GrapheneOS do you still get the same quality photos as you would with the stock OS?
I use Open Camera and the quality is very good. Especially the night mode! What you see with your eyes in a dark room with the TV on, that's what you will see in the photo. Not the same quality on the TV in the photo, of course, but very close.
Just a +1 for Open Camera - it's a great bit of software.
Indeed. Far the best camera for Android I've ever used. Kinda addicted to the timestamp/watermark/something, though, haha! Mighty good feature!
A bunch of older Chromebooks now running a Free firmware, and Debian.
Which chromebooks? if you don’t mind my asking… thinking of going this route, but I’ve read not all chromebooks are created equal wrt installing Linux.
I had some chromebooks from 2014 to 2019, and these specifically worked with the MrChromebox's firmware. There's a list on his website about the models supported.
aside from my kernel not very much
Did a fresh install of linux mint recently, because of that a good chunk of my software has been FOSS, however, when it comes to all the gaming related stuff I've installed (drivers, clients, etc.) its been a hit or miss with more proprietary software then i'd like.
Will say, I've struggled for a while to find a good open source music player for local files, I'd love some recommendations (currently trying Rhythmbox but I don't feel I'll love it)
Try Strawberry, Audacious, and Lollypop. There's a lot of options, it just depends on what you're looking for. I could give better suggestions if I knew what features are important to you.
I don't know if I've used Strawberry, but I used Clementine, from which it was forked for several years. Like OP, Rhythmbox wasn't doing it for me. Clementine/Strawberry is definitely worth a look.
I try to use FOSS as much as possible, but I am not willing to give up video games, so I do have steam installed. I also need discord for communication with friends I am playing with. I only use these two on my desktop computer. On my laptop I don't have any proprietary software running in userspace, but of course it still has proprietary firmware blobs and proprietary UEFI firmware. I also have an old Thinkpad X220 running coreboot and with ME disabled (HAP bit set, ME technically still runs, but halts after hardware initialization) and unnecessary ME components stripped using me_cleaner. And my home server also runs coreboot with ME "disabled" and stripped but it has a BMC with proprietary supermicro firmware and an LSI HBA that also requires firmware.
Quite near 100%. The device driver for the DVB-S receiver card is my exception.
Daily computing is mostly FOSS programs and my laptop is sold with Linux preinstalled (though I bought the higher spec Windows version and installed Linux myself. Cloud is FOSS, self-hosted in the public cloud (until I get fiber). Phone is rooted Android w/ FOSS apps wherever they meet my needs. I'm about 50% through degoogling and de-Microsofting. Ereader is KOReader (FOSS) running on old Kindle brand hardware. Keyboard is Ergodox Ez which I think the firmware is FOSS. Smarthome is still Smartthings which is not FOSS.
I'm going to give myself a C- 70% FOSS
You shouldn't use root on Android. It throws the security model out the window. Just run something without google
Going to probably try this after I build my pihole and I can VPN home for ad blocking. Currently I need root to avoid seeing ads.
Can't you just use ublock origin?
The browser ad on doesn't work in apps, and if they have a blocker outside of that, it probably uses a VPN on the loopback interface to strip out the ads. I run a VPN a fair bit, so I would only be adblocking when I'm not on the VPN. Are there any non-root methods that can do full system ad blocking other than the VPN thing?
Why not set Adguard as private DNS?
Don't use apps with ads. They are a privacy and freedom risk anyway. Use apps from F-droid.
Hard to pin a number on it, percentage-wise.
But can't/won't completely replace the OS yet because both google pay and android auto are essential to me and getting them working on most replacements is still a royal pain in the butt.
So let's call it 80%, maybe a bit more?
Increasingly so over time. Will try to install coreboot on my laptop soon. I avoid proprietary blobs where possible too but for stuff like the kernel, proprietary blobs are kinda unavoidable if you want a fully functional system. Tbf I've not tried linux-libre but I just assume it won't agree with some of my tower PC's hardware.
Aside from low-level stuff, I do still use Steam (and the proprietary games on there) and Discord—Steam cause all my games are there and it's convenient, and Discord cause a few of my friend groups primarily talk over Discord. Been considering setting up a Matrix bridge for Discord but I don't think that meaningfully achieves anything since it'll still all be on Discord's servers which are proprietary. I also occasionally install proprietary software to read proprietary file formats and would usually uninstall once I'm done reading the file.
I have a raspberry pi as a print server but that’s about it. I tried a few distros on an old laptop but none really worked that well.
Arch on every box in the house, including the primary router. Mixed Intel and AMD. Openwrt on every AP (unfortunately Mellanox and MediaTek firmware blobs for the radios). GrapheneOS on my daily and LineageOS on my legacy phone.
Aside from occasional games, I don't install anything I don't have the source to. My phone is the only exception, for apps required to interface with the rest of the world.
What is your "legacy phone"?
Ah, my last phone that no longer receives any updates. Pixel 2XL. Just keeping it around because parting with electronics is difficult.
I wish it was more, but the paid/closed options in a few categories are just significantly better than anything foss
What are those categories/apps?
I try but games are important to me, though I don't play modern games these days. I al as o make an exception for speaking/playing with friends.
Mostly FOSS locally, but I rely on some proprietary software where there are gaps in the FOSS ecosystem.