Ubuntu is not free.

[ubuntu at rio.vg]

meets at free.fr wrote:
>
> As you will see in next post I'm preparing, I'm not a developper, I
> even hardly know bash scripting, but I feel concerned very much.

You should really learn more about the issue before pontificating.

> One elegant solution to networking wifi issues would be to have a
> choice among kernels when installing (and the firmware license
> presented at this moment).

You need to read up on how the linux kernel works.  Modern Linux distros
use _modules_ for virtually everything.  This means that if you don't
need the driver, it doesn't get loaded.  Why bother with separate kernels?

> I would not want to look like being sarcastic, but It appears to me
> suddenly that I don't have a driver fit for Linux for my laptop. The
> winmodem is a ESS Technology ES2838/2839 SuperLink Modem, I went through
> the diverses sites where a solution could be searched for, and there is
> none for this one card (save an old text, a testimony it didn't work
> very well, and under 2.2 kernel only, and no more page under the link
> for the dl). 

If the driver doesn't exist, it can't very well be included with Ubuntu.

> Can you fancy how many hundreds materials exist ? what if everyone
> wants to have the matching drivers and firmwares inclueded in the
> linux-image package ? What about stability for example, or lightness ?

Read up on kernel modules.  As I said above, if the module isn't called
on, it isn't loaded.  Lightness is merely a factor of disk space.
Ubuntu is designed for desktops, not pda's, so that really isn't an issue.

> (I still didn't compile my own kernel, after two years using a Linux
> distribution).

Yet you seem perfectly content making wide pronouncements about software
of which you have little or no comprehension.