14 DAY TRIAL // If you're looking a 100% free kernel for your GNU/Linux operating system, you can now download the latest GNU Linux-Libre 4.16 kernel, which is based on the recently released Linux 4.16 kernel, but without any proprietary blobs.
The GNU Linux-Libre 4.16 kernel is here for all those who seek 100% freedom for their personal computer and don't want to use any proprietary drivers. It brings all the goodies from the Linux 4.16 kernel, which was released over the weekend by Linus Torvalds himself, though it brings the usual deblobbing changes, as well as a slightly revamped request_firmware mechanism.
"The major piece of news in this release is that the request_firmware machinery was slightly reworked, so that the reject_firmware variants return the expected -ENOENT, instead of -EINVAL; and reject_firmware_nowait now calls the named callback," said Alexandre Oliva in the release announcement. "With this, drivers that could proceed without firmware [...] should now work more seamlessly."
Thanks to this important change, various AMD Radeon graphics cards might start working now, even if no workaround is in place at this time, as well as some Realtek RTL8821AE wireless cards, even if the firmware fails to load. Moreover, the GNU Linux-Libre 4.16 kernel release removes any error messages that would suggest users to update their Intel x86 CPU microcode, which isn't free software.
Deblobbed drivers in the GNU Linux-Libre 4.16 kernel
Apart from the changes mentioned above, the GNU Linux-Libre 4.16 kernel deblobbs the new mt76x2e driver because it requested proprietary firmware, removes any deblobbing directives for the lirc_zilog driver as it's no longer available in Linux kernel 4.16, and dumps various remaining Kconfig directives designed to enable keyspan non-Free firmware before Linux kernel 4.15.
Without any further ado, if you're looking to build a 100% free operating system, you can download the GNU Linux-libre 4.16 kernel right now through our web portal, which needs to be compiled for your particular architecture. Binaries should be available for various GNU/Linux distributions in the coming days from the project's website. Meanwhile, you can also download the Linux 4.16 kernel.