The VRMS program does a nice job of listing the non-free components on your system. Let’s see what my VRMS report shows:
————
jwc@tereska:~$ vrms
Non-free packages installed on tereska
linux-generic Complete Generic Linux kernel
linux-restricted-modules- Non-free Linux 2.6.28 modules helper script
linux-restricted-modules- Restricted Linux modules for generic kernels
Contrib packages installed on tereska
flashplugin-installer Adobe Flash Player plugin installer
flashplugin-nonfree Adobe Flash Player plugin installer (transitional pack
3 non-free packages, 0.2% of 1467 installed packages.
2 contrib packages, 0.1% of 1467 installed packages.
————
This report reflects the current “free” status of the software on my system, but my system didn’t start out this way. What we see here is the result of a little bit of cleanup. For example, some restricted Nvidia and ATI drivers were installed by default, but I was able to remove them because I don’t have any Nvidia or ATI hardware on this computer.
Also, Valide (the name given to the Vala IDE program) was listed as contrib software on this report. I’m not sure why that is. I eventually removed it from the system prior to rerunning the vrms command, so it does not appear in the list above.
Anyway, at this point it looks like all I have to do to get a completely Free system is remove the flash plugin and, um, my kernel! Then I’ll be all set. : -)
John M
Sep 10th, 2009
You don’t have to get rid of your kernel ( and yes, I do realize you were more or less saying that with tongue in cheek), but there may be viable “Linux Libre” replacement kernel that is considered completely free. They were originally made for gNewSense but also work well on most Ubuntu and Debian systems. They are handrolled by a gentleman who’s name I cannot recall at the moment (I believe it’s Aurele Ligunduz), but I have used them on some of my other computers and they worked just fine, especially the newer ones which contain improved versions of the recently unshackled ath5k and ath9k wireless modules. Might be worth a look if you’re really that interested in finding out just how far you can push the limits of seeing how many “binary blobs” you can remove your system:
http://aligunduz.org/gNewSense/
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