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Last week, Phoronix broke a story about the kernel DRM group over at FreeDesktop.org submitting a pull request for their code of conduct to be included in the kernel docs for the DRM subsystem. The next day it was merged.
I'm particularly interested in if they think this will keep Linus from saying hurtful things to them over lousy code. Discuss.
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Torvalds Merges DRM CoC Into 4.12 Development Repo
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(Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Monday May 08 2017, @05:39PM (5 children)
Suddenly I have a renewed interest in BSD.
I've seen something or other about Gentoo supporting a BSD kernel, FreeBSD specifically [gentoo.org]. Is dropping a FreeBSD kernel on an existing system something I'd want to do like giving a TuxOnIce Linux kernel a spin instead of the usual Gentoo-patched Linux kernel, or is switching over something onerous like enabling selinux such that I'd be best just starting over fresh?
Do I even want to stick with Gentoo if I'm going *BSD or even FreeBSD? How does ports compare to portage?
Finally, I keep holding out hope that one of these days I'm going to buy a AAA game (a modern AAA game, not one that was AAA 10 years ago and just happens to have a port by a 3rd party or else will run under WINE) and it'll support a free as in speech operating system. What practical experiences have people had with newer nVidia cards under *BSD?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 08 2017, @05:48PM
No practical experience. But in general avoid NVidia cards. If you have to use them, try the Nouveau driver but NVidia actually makes FreeBSD drivers too. But as always it's a *blob*. Then there's the VESA BIOS driver, but that is in general only good for desktop and browser use. Still NVidia tries all kinds of shenanigans [tomshardware.com].
Intel or AMD/ATI graphics is usually a better choice in that order.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 08 2017, @10:22PM
You can't just "drop in" FreeBSD kernel on your existing system. It's not even something like enabling selinux. You need to do an entire clean install, because freebsd and linux have different syscall tables, different base libraries, different base utilities, and different filesystems.
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Monday May 08 2017, @10:27PM
Finally, I keep holding out hope that one of these days I'm going to buy a AAA game and it'll support a free as in speech operating system.
Huh? What is a 'free as in speech operating system' ? I mean XCOM/XCOM2 runs on linux, Civ6, Borderlands Pre-Sequel, Shadows of Mordor, Dota2, Stellaris... that's a fairly diverse bunch. Your right, there's still more misses than hits, but that's a decent bunch.
(Score: 1) by invis on Monday May 08 2017, @11:15PM
My GTX 960 works fine.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 09 2017, @08:06PM
It is either the nvidia proprietary driver if you're running FreeBSD (and only FreeBSD), or the freedesktop.org drm drivers ported over from linux if you're using the libre drivers.
Furthermore, I will note that despite the BSD projects stating they use the 'BSD license', many of them do in fact have 'license encumbered code', including in the kernel. Said code ranged from CDDL, to Apache, to more questionable licenses. The one benefit linux has going right now is that *ALL* code in the kernel *HAS* to be GPLv2, or it can't be included. BSD on the other hand has *TONS* of code advertised as 'FEATURES' that isn't enabled by default because it would result in the kernel being non-redistributable.
If you don't believe me, go read through the FreeBSD kernel source configuration file (I forget if GENERIC has it, or if you have to look through one of the other files for the 'FULL' configuration options. Regardless it has a number of warnings in it about exactly that.)
Decide for yourself which is freer, or better helps you avoid running afoul of licensing missteps. At least the GPL is honest and straightforward about its requirements and responsibilities. The BSD kernels will some/all optional features enabled? Not so much.
These statements exclude firmware binaries and their associated licenses. From there you have to jump to Linux-Libre or similiar to have NO potential submarine license issues.