On 2/17/19, dns1983@riseup.net <dns1983@riseup.net> wrote:

It wasn't clear to me if those operating systems would install any kind of firmware automatically.

Firmware / Microcode / BIOS blobs are related to the specific hardware you have installed... if the hw requires having the blob loaded into it after each boot to even function, then some OS will support and can do that, some manually, some automatically. Driver blobs are similar but are vendors secrets running as part of the OS kernel that are used to talk to the hw. Many OS offer both closed and opensource versions of each. If you don't have hw that needs them, then while the blobs may still be on disk or in source and package repos or in the kernel and userland until compiled out, it's not much issue, other than the philosophical stance of the OS on them. Some OS essentially disavow blobs altogether... OpenBSD which is a bit famous in its own way, and maybe a few Linux distros. Most OS do have some variations in blob policy and implementation that may affect a users particular choice of OS... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_blob https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9671025 https://web.archive.org/web/20130424125958/http://kerneltrap.org/node/6550 https://ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/songs/song39.ogg https://www.openbsd.org/papers/brhard2007/mgp00027.html

I want to try openbsd, maybe recompiling the kernel if I can.

That is documented for users here... https://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq5.html And even comes with music for while you work ... :) https://www.openbsd.org/lyrics.html Ultimately, if you don't want blobs, don't use them, don't buy them, hack them out, or be first to market with an auditable thus very profitable Open HW chain... #OpenFabs , #OpenHW , #OpenSW , #OpenDev , #OpenBiz