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Calling a “regular” Linux desktop operating system being Black boxed or closed source is a bit too far in my opinion. I do not agree 100%, but I understand the concerns and points brought up in this discussion.

A post like this is a disservice to the majority everyone.

Even harmful as it promotes software that should be run only on rare hardware (eg RISC-V with all the fully hardware level open peripherals too) the extremely vast majority of users do not have any practical access to.
All with the premise on some technicality you don’t even explain (bcs then it would make it obvious, why such distros shouldn’t be used by majority).
And you don’t even mention that.

Not to mention saying that Linux distros are as bad as Windows locking you into closed code.

I mean lol. That’s is just intentionally dishonest.

It’s like claiming hydrogen gas is harmful to you in the same way as “standing” on the surface of the Sun.

This post makes me feel sad, bcs the basis you hinge on is an important PSA to spread around.
How else am I ever gonna get a decent open-hardware PC?

(And just to not be misunderstood, I love what FSF strands for and is doing all this time, it’s a beacon for the way forward - but we have to navigate to there.)

They’re 100% free in the sense that they don’t ship closed code, ever. That is the goal to attain. However, we’re not there yet. For that, hardware needs to be open. Hardware can’t be as easily be made by a group of volunteers as software. Like at all. To solve this ‘transient’ state, all popular distros allow adding some sort of ‘nonfree’ repo so that, you know, shit can work. For instance, you are free to install Debian and not enable the nonfree repo, which is not enabled by default. You are also free to wonder later why your webcam doesn’t work, you can’t print, your bluetooth headset won’t pair and your fancy gaming GPU outputs 10 FPS @800x600.

Better get an Open Hardware RISC V system, with stuff like the graphics, sound and elt/WiFi/Bt being Open Hardware too.

Then you can go with a fully open OS and it will actually make sense.

Personally I’m a fan of smoke signals. No proprietary blobs in sight.

Aren’t these shipped without any proprietary firmware, which you can try and if it works for you it works and use it but for many people these just won’t work and using stuff like arch/Debian/fedora/opensuse to name a few will work much better. Like they are great distros if they work for you use them but they are not for everyone.

I think using major distros like Fedora, Ubuntu, or Debian is fine, because corporate backing often supports faster security fixes and better infrastructure.

Depending on whether you want a distro that removes all non-free options from the start or one that gives you free options, or ways to only select free options, I’d add Gentoo to that list. Much like in other situations, it gives you the choice to have your cake and eat it too. You can select a list of licenses you want (with certain predefined sets), and override that list on a per-package basis if you want/need.

Here is a Guide/Wiki-Article.

Agree those are 100% free? I don’t know. It would take a lot of research to verify but I trust fsf as it is currently so think its likely the case. Agree to fully switch to a 100% free os? No. I need the nvidia driver. I would like to though. Believe that really any linux distro is a black box/closed os? No. Just having some binary blobs from vendors is a compromise but its not a deal breaker.

The FSF has an ass-backwards approach to firmware, leading to only these distros fulfilling their requirements.

Their preference for firmware is as follows:

1. Firmware that’s open source (fair enough)
2. Firmware that can’t be updated (i.e. devices that are flashed once at the factory)
3. Firmware that can be updated (CPU microcode, firmware for GPUs, SSDs, etc)

As Linux includes patching of CPU microcode on boot (to fix security vulnerabilities and bugs) the default build of Linux doesn’t fulfill those requirements.

My priority in what I use is for it to work out-of-the-box, be secure, and not get in my way. For security reasons I do support the concept of 100% open-source purity (though I’m much softer on or even opposed to the “free” part of FOSS), but I’m not prepared to sacrifice convenience for that cause.

Wasn’t there something that couldn’t be classified as free because it had json or something which has a licence and it’s only stipulation is is “do not use for evil”?

suckless sucks. it’s an interesting science experiment but no normal person would ever find software from that realm of thought useful

Iirc, the list is of operating systems that the FSF recommends. You could have a system running 100% free software, but the FSF won’t recommend it if the distro makes it easy to theoretically install proprietary code. It’s fine to run such a system, but the FSF won’t recommend it.