Kanotix CeBIT 2013 Special with binary drivers autodeteced + Steam preinstalled

[Kano]

As I am these days in Hannover I made an interesting live system which can be of course HD installed as well with binary drivers autodetected (Nvidia Geforce 8+ and Amd HD 5+) and also with Mesa 9.1 - not really optimal for Radeon/Nouveau but Intel HD 2000+ works well for Team Fortress 2. It is based on Debian Wheezy with some extras:

* Kernel 3.8.2 (Ubuntu 3.8.0-10 with one extra patch and SATA_AHCI static)
* Nvidia 313.18 and Fglrx 13.2 Beta 7 available in gfxdetect mode and after hd install in that mode
* Mesa 9.1 for open source gfx drivers, best suited for Intel HD 2000+
* Amarok 2.7.0
* Wine 1.5.25
* LibreOffice 4.0.0 (Note to LO: please update before CeBIT next time!)
* Grub 2.00 (in case of UEFI boot requires primary mbr or gpt partition mounted to /boot/efi, can be shared with Win, use adv. partitioning)
* Steam preinstalled
* Libc 2.17 from Debian experimental (in order to use Steam precise repo)
* Iceweasel 19, OpenJDK (only JRE+plugin) 7u15 from Debian experimental

Note: In case you use Fgrlx it is possible to get a blackscreen when shutdown, you can try to press enter to shutdown or hold power button.

I dont have got release announcements on my website as i am a bit busy, but you find the iso here:

http://debian.tu-bs.de/kanotix/KANOT...-Special-2013/

With that iso I wanted to demonstrate that Kanotix has got some extra features that Ubuntu does not have. Let me know what you think of it.

[mattst88]

How do you handle the kernel module portions of the proprietary graphics drivers? Compile at boot-time?

[Kakarott]

FGLRX-Legacy 13.1 for AMD HD4xxxx and below would be nice…

[Kano]

It would be possible to create such an iso too but that driver is not supported with Serious Sam 3 and Team Fortress 2 is about 10% slower. The kernel modules are installed with dkms but not compiled at boottime, that would be too slow.

[mattst88]

The kernel modules are installed with dkms but not compiled at boottime, that would be too slow.

Just a heads-up: I've read that shipping the binary kernel modules is not okay according to the GPL. Other Live CD projects have run afoul of this in the past. See http://web.archive.org/web/200606022...y060512-160752

Apparently the easiest way to avoid this is to compile the kernel modules at boot-time.

(I just read about this on #gentoo-dev the other day)

[Kakarott]

It would be possible to create such an iso too but that driver is not supported with Serious Sam 3 and Team Fortress 2 is about 10% slower. The kernel modules are installed with dkms but not compiled at boottime, that would be too slow.

So you say Mesa/Radeon/Gallium is working much better/or at least equal for AMD HD 2xxx-4xxx legacy cards then fglrx-legacy? Especially using "no so always upstream" Debian?

[brosis]

Just a heads-up: I've read that shipping the binary kernel modules is not okay according to the GPL. Other Live CD projects have run afoul of this in the past. See http://web.archive.org/web/200606022...y060512-160752

Apparently the easiest way to avoid this is to compile the kernel modules at boot-time.

(I just read about this on #gentoo-dev the other day)

This is FUD and it resulted in distribution you linked to to disappear. Hence "Webarchive".
The only one interested in such FUD is not GPL or FSF advocate, but one who doesn't want Linux system to work out of the box.

It seems that your kororaa live CD contains the non-GPL nvidia and ati
binary drivers. I hereby request that you cease distribution of these
drivers as part of your live CD for the following reason: This
distribution both goes against the open source spirit of linux and is a
license violation of the linux kernel.

To expand on this later claim:
* When *you* build these drivers, you include GPL linux kernel code in
the binary result, which *you* then distribute. (1)
* The GPL license clause 2 does not allow combination of GPL and non-GPL
work in a bigger work (your live CD) when the 2 pieces are not
reasonably independent. (Strictly speaking this means you're not allowed
to include the linux kernel on your CD; to keep your CD functional
however the easier way is to drop the nvidia/ati drivers) (1)
* The GPL license clause 3 does not allow you to distribute a derived
work unless it's also GPL licensed. The compiled ATI/NVidia drivers are
clearly a derived work (even though parts of the drivers most likely are
not, parts clearly are, and you're distributing it all together). (2)

While I applaud your effort to make linux easier to use, I urge you to
play be the same rules (GPL) as everyone else is playing by. (3)

(1) Incorrect, because you do not include anything into anything.
The storage device does not mean any kind of linking. It only means storing.
If claim "It is violation of GPL to store GPL and other license together" were correct, then it would be illegal to use GPL software anywhere

Further, when user starts the GPL software, it uses known non-GPL interfaces to interact with the driver under EULA. Both interfaces and driver EULA explicitly allow it. GPL has no application in this area, hence it is legally allowed to:
-1 ship distribution with integrated drivers
-2 execute such distribution

Even when one gets the CD in hands and tries to compile the drivers on his machine, following FUD flawed logic, he would in-place break GPL. Which is wrong, incorrect and stupid.

Disallowed is to: statically or dynamically compile the driver under EULA directly into GPL code (NOT usage over interfaces).

(2) Drivers are not derived work. It is up to their copyright maintainer to watch out which licenses to take for upstreaming code, for them to match his own EULA for the end product.

Distribution is also NOT derived work, because author of distribution is not claiming copyright on these components and uses them according to cases allowed under individual licenses.

(3) The guy is lying, the only thing he wants, is to kill the distribution by completely destroying out of box experience and making it usage useless.

[Kano]

@Kakarott

Mesa 9.1 is problematic with older amd cards, it has rendering errors and is slow. Basically you need Mesa master right now - hopefully the needed fixes come to 9.1.1 which i will certainly package. I did not like to package Mesa master but wanted a stable Mesa release.

@mattst88

It is absolutely no technical problem to compile the module on boot. But to you like to wait 1 min longer or more on slower systems? If somebody wants to sue me because of 2 stupid precompiled modules then do it. There is no money to get from me anyway. I have got no financial gain when i produce this kind of live image so what should happen? One distro less than before, big gain for the Linux community.