Bug 430222 – documentation about gentoo + linux-libre is very hard to find

• Product: [OLD] Docs on www.gentoo.org
• Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

[Description Andrew Engelbrecht 2012-08-06 20:03:06 UTC]

Hello, and thanks for the libre gentoo kernels!

It took me a while to figure out that I have to add "deblob" to "USE" to compile a deblobbed kernel.

It would be helpful if that were mentioned in the gentoo handbook: in the kernel section, or the licenses section which talks about the "-* @FREE" setting. Another place could be the otherwise exhaustive gentoo kernel list page, since that is linked to from the handbook. I didn't find any reference to "linux-libre", "libre" or "deblob" on those pages.

In the meantime, I've mentioned the "deblob" option on the Licenses page of the gentoo wiki. I've also mentioned that those kernels aren't supported by gentoo security, so people know about the risk.

I found this to be an instance where a choice is implied, by never mentioning that an option is available. I think there are many users that would appreciate a few lines in the official documentation.

Thanks!

[Comment 1 Jeremy Olexa (darkside) (RETIRED) 2012-08-06 20:12:04 UTC]

Isn't the use flag description enough? (quse -D deblob)

 local:deblob:sys-kernel/gentoo-sources: Remove binary blobs from kernel sources to provide libre license compliance.

[Comment 2 Andrew Engelbrecht 2012-08-06 20:27:22 UTC]

(In reply to comment #1)
> Isn't the use flag description enough? (quse -D deblob)

Ideally, yes. However the link to that page is near the bottom of the handbook under Appendix B.2.

I think that people would like to know about it when they are compiling their kernel, or reading about making a license list.

[Comment 3 nm (RETIRED) 2012-08-06 23:25:16 UTC]

it's not a separate kernel source, so it doesn't need to be documented in gentoo-kernel.xml. it's just a USE flag (as darkside explained), and those are very easy to examine.