GNU Linux-Libre 5.5 Kernel Arrives for Those Seeking 100% Freedom for Their PCs

GNU Linux-Libre 5.5

The GNU Linux-Libre 5.5 kernel has been released today as a 100% free version of the Linux 5.5 kernel, shipping only with free and open source drivers.

GNU Linux-Libre 5.5 kernel is here for those seeking 100% freedom for their personal computers, as it deblobs more drivers, including brcmstb_dpfe, i915, iwlwifi, mlxsw spectrum, wilc1000, r8169, x86 touchscreen dmi, and xhci-tegra.

In addition, the GNU Linux-Libre 5.5 kernel release also cleans several new drivers, among which we can mention IDT Clockmatrix, Realtek RTL815[23] USB Ethernet adaptors, RT5677 sound codecs, and WFX wf200 wireless.

The GNU Linux-libre is a free, open source version of the Linux kernel, designed for anyone who doesn’t want to run any proprietary software on their PCs. It’s suitable for use with any GNU/Linux distribution and the GNU Operating System.

Inherits Linux kernel 5.5’s new features and improvements

As expected, this GNU Linux-libre kernel release inherits all of Linux kernel 5.5‘s new features and improvements. Among these, we can mention cross device offloaded copy for NFS clients, Airtime Queue Limits (AQL), RAID1 with 3- and 4- copies in Btrfs, as well as io_uring(2) and BPF improvements.

Linux kernel 5.5 also brings support for using SMB as root file system, SMB multichannel support, a new unit testing framework called kunit, and several new checksum types for the Btrfs file system.

If you’re looking to have a 100% free personal computer, you can download the GNU Linux-libre 5.5 kernel right now from the official website. You might also be able to install it from the software repositories of various GNU/Linux distributions.

Source and image: GNU Linux-libre

Last updated 4 years ago

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