[Bug 1] suggested patch - search engine for "free hardware" systems

[Amir E. Aharoni]

Ubuntu is both a popular distribution and one that is relatively purist
about Free Software.

Despite that, i couldn't find an *easy* way on any Ubuntu-related
website, or anywhere on the web, to test whether a computer will work
with Ubuntu without the need to use restricted drivers and firmware
*before* i buy the computer.

Until now everything was an afterthought - for years i installed Linux
after i bought the computer and all the time i ran into problems because
there were no drivers at all or because there were no free drivers.

Now i want to test that a computer will be completely usable with only
Free Software without binary blobs and proprietary firmware - but i
couldn't find any sane way to do it without being a hardware guru,
kernel hacker and master lspci decryptor.

I already looked at the gNewSense webpage (
http://wiki.gnewsense.org/Main/RecommendedHardware ) and FSF's Hardware
compatibility page ( http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/ ). Still too hard
to decypher. I looked at a few "linux laptop compatibility" sites that i
found on Google, but it didn't help - they are all a mess. I know that
it is all a volunteer community effort, but i think that it is a
problem.

I asked about it on some forums and mailing lists several times. Some
people say "buy a Dell/System76" - well, at least some Dells and
System76's use NVidia drivers, which are either non-Free or technically
crippled. Some say "Google is your friend" - but no, in this case it is
not: It is damn hard to check every single device and be sure that it
has a free driver.

Some people say that i worry too much and that this matter is just not
too important. I understand a few things about software, but i really
don't claim to understand ALL of the technical implications of non-free
drivers and firmware, so one could say that i listen to Richard
Stallman's preaching about freedom too zealously; but i believe that
this might be important to Ubuntu considering Mark Shuttleworth's
announcement of the extra-free Gutsy Gibbon edition. Who will bother to
try to install it, if it's too damn hard to find a properly free
computer which can run it?

I know that this sounds very pretentious and i am not even close to
being a notable member of the Ubuntu community, but i think that this is
a bit of a meta-bug in itself and that the famous "Bug #1" cannot be
fixed before this issue is addressed somehow.

Any ideas how can that be made easier?

-- 
Microsoft has a majority market share
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