It's based on the official Linux 4.8 kernel

Oct 3, 2016 21:20 GMT  ·  By

On October 2, 2016, immediately after Linus Torvalds announced the release of Linux kernel 4.8, Alexandre Oliva from the GNU Linux-libre project published the GNU Linux-libre 4.8 kernel for those who want 100% freedom when using a GNU/Linux OS.

As you might have guessed already, the Linux-libre 4.8-gnu kernel is based on the recently released Linux 4.8 kernel branch, but it contains lots of deblobbing changes for quite a large number of the newly included drivers, in particular those for AMD Radeon Evergreen graphics processing units. Some work was done as well to the internal documentation.

"There was a much larger than usual number of new drivers requiring deblobbing, plus the usual assortment of blob version bumps in filenames and an unusual amount of movement in media-related documentation, in which a number of deblobbing changes are required," says Alexandre Oliva in the announcement.

GNU Linux-libre project offers you 100% freedom

With the GNU Linux-libre 4.8 kernel, you have 100% freedom when running a GNU/Linux operating system, as the GNU Linux-libre project produces a special version of the latest mainline upstream Linux kernel that is 100% free of proprietary code. Basically, it does not contain any non-free components, and it also disables runtime requests for them.

While designed from the offset to work with the gNewSense operating system, the GNU Linux-libre kernel is suitable for any Linux distribution. Therefore, if you're interested in running a 100% free operating system on your personal computer, we recommend that you download the GNU Linux-libre kernel 4.8 right now via our website, and visit the official homepage of the GNU Linux-libre project at http://linuxlibre.org for more details on how to install it on your distro.