[Freedombox-discuss] Starting from the beginning -- which "box" to run freedom box on?
Hello all!
I must say that freedombox looks like a pretty good idea, and I've listened
to several (on-line) lectures about it. A small box that can keep your
privacy and security with you (and not some company somewhere spying on you
or even goverment) is definately a good idea.
I understand that it is early days for the software to run on a freedombox,
but I was wondering - which - if any of the devices that are currently
avaliable can be used properly as a fully fledged freedombox.
I know this sounds almost like a stupid question but the only reason I ask
is because I'm finding at least some of the potential devices to contain at
least some sort of propietary software.
For example the rasberry pi looks like a good idea and I've heard good
things about it. Unfortunatly from what I can gather either its video or
boot procedure is propietary. The same may be even true for the dreamplug
(e.g. http://www.plugcomputer.org/plugforum/index.php?topic=6007.0 ) . Note
the wlan driver is listed as "Marvell Propietary".
The same sorts of problem (and I know this is a little OT) also exist on
some ARM netbooks, e.g. the efika MX smartbook (which comes with ubuntu)
has propietary video drivers which can mean problems if you don't want to
use the default install (i.e. *very* slow video performance without
propietary components).
It almost seems like a bit of a problem in the non-x86 world - namely
devices have propietary software parts which mean using anything other than
the "blessed" gnu/linux distro (if they have one) will mean serious
problems (as if your software is propietary chances are you won't be able
to compile that part or piece of software on your distro).
To my mind this limits the amount of currently avaliable boxes that could
run the freedombox software by quite a large margin.
Are there any new plug computer boxes being created at the moment that
don't have any of these nasty propietary bits in at all?
ljones
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