Some thoughts about the question if free software distributions should include non-free software and how this relates to Replicant and Debian. An attempt at a fitting analogy is made at the end.

Some time ago, I started to wonder if it would be possible to update the old Linux kernel for the GT-I9300 variant (international version) of the Galaxy S3 to a more recent version.

The Galaxy S3 comes with a bootloader named S-Boot which is a proprietary bootloader from Samsung. In this post, I want to collect information about the possibilty to run the free bootloader U-Boot on the phone.

The following instructions make it possible to install nonfree firmware on Android devices.

Recently, I managed to to make Replicant 6.0 buildable on Debian Stretch. I'm still using Debian Jessie on my machines, so I set up a chroot with Stretch. I'll document all the necessary steps in the following to establish a Stretch build environment and build Replicant 6.0 inside it.

Cloning large repositories can result in quite some load on the server side. A possible solution is the use of bundles. Git can package a certain revision in an archive. The client can fetch the bundle and set up a clone locally based on the bundle.

It's 2016 and not much seems to have changed over the last decades when looking at the big picture. Very few people are getting richer and richer while the rest has less and less. There are many violent conflicts around the world. People are divided by religion, race, ...

I try to use as much free software as possible. I don't only do this for moral or philosophical reasons, but also because there are numerous practical benefits.