Guys that made free kernel put a lot of effort for you to *not* have
the drivers, you know...
It's probably different with each case, Ralink firmware IIRC was a
separate package, dunno if it was coupled with free or non-free kernel
module.
But I'm still wondering what the devs would say ;)

2011/9/30 PaK Zer0 <dmusta1ne.pak@???>:
> That's what we are begging for: a solution to that problem.
>
> Maybe a workaround would be a "patch" for D:B for old/not-free
> hardware, so you always can choose instead of have this problem or not
> being free about this choice.
>
> 2011/9/30 Lukasz Jastrzebski <luke.jastrzebski@???>:
>> Hi!
>>
>> My conclusions are quite different, but first, define what is the old
>> hardware, what does it mean?
>> I'd say 10 years old hardware is a rare example of good manufacturing,
>> and I quite frankly have problems to, for example, upgrade hardware
>> with much newer components than this - and with few exceptions we're
>> talking about second market here.
>> I usually buy 4-6 years old hardware from what used to be the top
>> shelf. I use them on a daily basis, they do what I want (for 10% of
>> the price I should pay for a new one). But let's say that 10 years is
>> giveaway level - no matter if this is a PC, laptop or whatever else -
>> I assume it has USB, PCI, PCIMCIA if mobile, and around 256 MB of ram
>> (even though half of it was kind of normal back then), 800MHz clock,
>> leaving plenty of opportunities to upgrade it... I think that D:B will
>> work on that.
>> If it's worse - taking different distro, dedicated for old stuff
>> should do the trick.
>>
>> And yes, no wi-fi from D:B works in my place as well, and the problem
>> is the same as yours - lack of free drivers. I usually depend on
>> wireless connectivity. The answer is as simple, as taking the cable
>> and making it work. Wifi is just for ease of wandering around my
>> house...
>>
>> Having binary blobs, or some not-so-free components inside Linux is
>> not that good, but oh, come on guys! There always is a solution!
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Ł
>>
>> 2011/9/30 sayhi2guy@??? <sayhi2guy@???>:
>>> Hi
>>>
>>> Just a few thought son what I see as a conflict of goals in D:B's
>>> philosophy.  On one hand d:b is committed to totally free software, but
>>> D:B is also trying to be an OS to recycle old equipment (as in the
>>> famous $0 laptop).
>>>
>>> People who depend on other peoples old unwanted
>>> hardware cannot always choose what they want, especially whether the
>>> hardware has free drivers.  There is an English saying that 'beggars
>>> cannot be choosers.' As an example, both my computers are donated 'cast
>>> offs' and the usb wireless on one needs the ralink firmware that D:B
>>> does not include; I cannot just afford to go out and buy something else
>>> so I cannot use that PC with D:B.
>>>
>>> The goal of encouraging someone to
>>> only use hardware with free drivers is good, but not always practical:
>>> The irony is that this hinders the people who need the free software
>>> the most.
>>>
>>> Best wishes
>>> Guy
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>> dynebolic@???
>>> http://lists.dyne.org/mailman/listinfo/dynebolic
>>>
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>
>
>
> --
> DMusta1ne / PaK-Zer0
> http://pak-0.bandcamp.com
>
> Could you put a price on peace?
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