Ubuntu tainting the kernel with proprietary drivers ?

[Paul Sladen]

On Sun, 11 Jun 2006, Conrad Knauer wrote:

> what bothers me about the article you quoted was that he went further,
> claiming (based on a forum post) that "the proprietary firmware are not
> in pool/restricted/, they are included in
> linux-image-2.6.15-23-686_2.6.15-23.39_i386.deb, the main kernel

  $ apt-cache show linux-restricted-modules-2.6.15-23-386 | grep -E '^(Package|Depends|Desc| )'
  Package: linux-restricted-modules-2.6.15-23-386
  Depends: linux-image-2.6.15-23-386, linux-restricted-modules-common (>=
    2.6.15), module-init-tools, nvidia-kernel-common

The binary modules/proprietary modules are in 'linux-restricted-modules':

  Description: Non-free Linux 2.6.15 modules on 386
   This package provides restricted modules for Linux version 2.6.15 on
   386.
   Currently the following modules are included:
    - madwifi (Atheros)
    - fglrx (ATI)
    - nvidia
    - fcdsl, fcdsl2, fcdslsl, fcdslslusb, fcdslusb, fcdslusb2, fcdslusba,
      fcpci, fcpcmcia, fcpcmcia_cs, fcusb, fxusb (AVM ISDN)
    - ltmodem (Winmodem)
   .
   These modules are "restricted" because they are not available under a
   completely Free licence.

and this is _not_ a dependancy of the kernel.

	-Paul
-- 
High on a Spanish mountain, surrounded by howling dogs.  London, GB