Hard disagree. Only people that are already in linux-land should even think or talk about this, and only after they're aware of what they depend on and whether they can even do that in the first place.

Main reason: biggest thing holding Linux back is user-base. The more users there are, the more that companies will actually care about supporting the OS. In the meantime, newbies to Linux need an OS that is as hassle free as possible that supports what they need. Windows and macOS have their downsides, but you can't disagree that they work out of the box. You only get a few chances to get someone to even think about switching ecosystems, and going to a straight free distro is another huge hurdle on top of that. Most closed source applications only get tested on debian/rhel based distros anyway, I wouldn't be able to do my my day job on a distro outside of that without some serious headache.

There are many closed source components that don't have equivalent open source alternatives, and features are a thing that will snag many people. Most people aren't technical.

Iirc, the list is of operating systems that the FSF recommends. You could have a system running 100% free software, but the FSF won't recommend it if the distro makes it easy to theoretically install proprietary code. It's fine to run such a system, but the FSF won't recommend it.

Probably OpenBSD NetBSD

suckless sucks. it's an interesting science experiment but no normal person would ever find software from that realm of thought useful

Trisquel is an Ubuntu base, with all non-free and binary-blobs removed.

Any spyware, data harvesting, tracking, advertising, or hidden code has been removed.

This also means some hardware will not work under Trisquel, because that hardware relied on drivers which were a blob of unreadable code.

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I think everyone running Linux should try an FSF endorsed distro, and have it as a general goal to move towards over time. The easy way, is to try it first on a LiveUSB or in a VM.

To really see these distros shine, they need to be used on hardware that has open-drivers available.

To find functional open-hardware, you can use the same hardware models that various online, libre, hardware-retailers are using, such as:

minifree.org

vikings.net

thinkpenguin.com

Or trawl through h-node.org to decipher what may work.

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A second 100% libre laptop or box is a good idea for sensitive or personal content.

Debain and Fedora are 100% free software operating systems.

Point at a single package in either one that is proprietary software.

Driver firmware does not count. Why? Because that is hardware. The hardware is proprietary regardless and there is proprietary firmware in my hardware regardless of what my OS does.

None of the operating systems listed run on “free” hardware, so arguing about how free the non-free hardware is is meaningless.

Calling Debian and Fedora “closed source” or “black box” because they distribute firmware is madness. Hardware that cannot be updated at all is less “black box”? If that is your view, your opinions hold no weight with me at all.

no, i like my computer to work