Frequently Asked Question

Tehnoetic is not a common online shop and that's why it's no wonder we receive so many questions. On this page we try to answer to the most frequently asked. Please use the contact form for other questions that are not to be found in the list below.

Frequently asked questions about the Tehnoetic TET-N150 adapter with free firmware

Product page: Tehnoetic wireless adapter for GNU+Linux-libre (TET-N150)

Why does it cost so much?

We are a small company devoted to selling items which respect the freedom of our client users. Not many users care about their freedom thus the sales volume is too small to cover the costs and we cannot have competitive prices comparing to regular shops, at least not just yet. By buying the Tehnoetic TET-N150 adapter, you invest in an ethical business which tries everything possible to make freedom-respecting hardware more affordable for users.

What makes it special?

Both the driver, and the firmware of this adapter are free, meaning that they respect user's four basic freedoms: 0. to be used for any purpose, 1. to be studied and modified, 2. to be redistributed and 3. to be distributed modified versions of it.

Most of the integrated circuits in wireless boards and adapters don't have free firmware. Some of them have free drivers, like most from Intel, but the firmware is still nonfree, controlled by the manufacturers of the integrated circuits. This means that the manufacturers are the only ones to decide what features the device has and what it does besides what they tell you it does, keeping you dependent on the sole developer.

Why would I need it?

It's most likely that your laptop has a wireless card which requires nonfree firmware and possibly even nonfree driver. We invite you to check the model of your board on the website h-node. If you haven't noticed this problem by now, it's because you don't use a distribution which respects your freedom, but one corrupted with several nonfree software programs which make you dependent and helpless.

The GNU project lists both completely free GNU+Linux distributions, and common distributions which include nonfree software. To make sure your computer connects to the wireless networks using free software, we recommend you test it with a free distribution, like Trisquel, with the packages brought up to date. If the wireless board doesn't work with these GNU+Linux distributions, it means that your kernel, Linux, works with nonfree blobs of which you didn't even know. In completely free distributions you benefit from a kernel cleaned of nonfree blobs, called Linux-libre.

Does it work with other operating systems?

It works with partially free GNU+Linux distributions without the need to install nonfree packages, possibly from separate repositories. It works with Windows too. It doesn't work with Mac OS. Though, we cannot guarantee that in those systems with which it works, the automatically installed firmware is the free one, considering that those operating systems don't respect their users' freedom. That's why we recommend you to use the adapter with a completely free GNU+Linux distribution, in other words, with a GNU+Linux-libre distribution.

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Frequently Asked Question