I read that Bluetooth is bundled on the wireless card used, but that Bluetooth drivers are not available in the FLOSS community.
However if one where to go proprietary the hardware is there and bluetooth could work?
That is correct.
Not entirely correct 
The drivers are there but to operate the AR3k Bluetooth a binary only firmware is needed which we do not ship with PureOS. If you are OK with binary only firmware you can manually download and install it, it is included in the Linux kernel firmware git:
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware.git/tree/ar3k
Cheers
nicole
3 Likes
I know this is against Purism’s philosophy, but it would be helpful if a guide to installing this binary and getting bluetooth up and running could be provided. At least until such time that a FLOSS complaint firmware is created that is.
if you’re not against binary blobs then why not just go full ubuntu 18.10 ? it’s brand new and shiny … works great on new hardware. kernel 4.18.0-10-generic
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Oh no, we are! Just some of us are a nanobit more pragmatic than RMS. One blob is still better than many… Also, there’s the hope it will go away at some point in time.
Weak argument… it’s less free than PureOS and in a few weeks it will also be less brand new and shiny, when PureOS will already be on Kernel 4.19
6 Likes
Well said Caliga.
I am not against proprietary software.
However if software wants to be believed when they say it is secure and respects privacy there is no alternative. It must be FLOSS.
That said in 2018 being able to use a bluetooth mouse is nice. Especially since if I get real paranoid I can just turn off (physically) the wireless radio as a whole.
Also my experience has been that PureOS is the most streamlined of Linux distros and seems to run just faster with less resources. (Those with a GNU that is. TKL is much more streamlined, of course.) In VMWare Workstation PureOS is much faster than every other linux distro I’ve tried on my Windows machine.
2 Likes
sorry when exactly will PureOS move to 4.19 ? where do you follow this information ? my understanding is it’s like debian sid ? is this correct ?
4.18 is allready a great step for amd apu users since the vega gpu graphics driver is running out of the box with great performance and is for all intents and purposes the same performance as the closed source amd driver for gaming and 4k hdr not pro opengl for 3d and cad (that is still a pro driver premium fee-sadly:(
that is for amd raven ridge 2200G(4c) 2400G(8c) athon 200GE(2c) and the dedicated wx series gpus
Almost. Debian Testing. So you can expect kernel updates soon after they are in there.
yes 4.19 is brand new but how stable is it compared to the less-brand new 4.18 ?
I assume one or more of the Linux vendors asks “What seems to be the problem with releasing the source for the drivers?”
What tends to be the response?
Just curious.
-K
It’s about 6 weeks less stable
However, that should really not be a concern. Linux kernels are stable the day they are released. There is no “lets’s hope for the best and let’s see what happens when we release this to the wild”.
By the time a new kernel is pushed to Debian testing it already received some patches. But if you looked through the change logs (e.g. 4.19.1), you might find that they are minor and would not really have affected you. Or they fix problems also present in 4.18.
2 Likes
Simply copy the ar3k folder from the link:
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware.git/tree/ar3k
to your system partition /lib/firmware/
Then reboot and it should work.
I have been working on resolving the issue and can happily report that I did at least get rid of the firmware but the driver still needs the sysconfig file (ramps*). I am further working on finding out what it contains and how to remove this too - or to find out more about its content and eventually decide if we can include it in PureOS. So we are making progress on this front too.
Cheers
nicole
5 Likes
The license says that
No reverse engineering, decompilation, or disassembly of this Software is permitted.
How does one free the firmware without doing any of that? Doesn’t one need to know how the firmware should work in order to write the firmware?
At which point do you accept a licence and therfore are bound by its terms? 
I don’t like it when someone breaches {,A}GPL especially when I am one of the contributors. That’s why I respect nonfree licenses and try to avoid things published under them. At what point does someone who disagrees with copyleft licenses accept? How is taking code from a GPL work and publishing it under a nonfree license different from reverse engineering or decompiling nonfree code and publishing it under GPL without permission?
Taking GPL work and publishing it under another license is a copyright infringment.
Publishing reverse-engineered code is something else. A license breach if you had to accept the license in order to get hold of the binary. Some other laws regarding reverse-engineering may apply. Not everywhere it is legal to reverse engineer just like that. Some jurisdictions require you to have a valid reason for it. (valid legally, not the same thing as morally justified).
Anyhow, those differences are immaterial to what I was saying (or attempted to say) before: A license only applies when you accept it. How and when you accept a license is a matter much more complicated than it should be. I’ll stop here and refer you to a lawyer.
My Bluetooth headphones work just fine with a fresh install of PureOS on my Librem 13 v3. The only trouble I have is they lose connection any time I switch from battery to AC power or vice versa. I don’t know what the blob is supposed to do, but I haven’t needed to install it yet.
Now it won’t recognize the Bluetooth capabilities. I guess my experience was an anomaly I cannot remake.
Hi,
I’m sorry as I’m quite not an advanced user of Linux distribution, my question below may seem to be a bit ‘stupid’…
Using your link, how do i get and copy the all ‘ar3k’ folder. I cannot find any command for it.
Thx