Proprietary wifi and graphic drivers and privacy

Hi All, I have purchased Zorin Pro to install it on a Mac Book Pro A1707 with intel processor. During installation i chose not to install proprietary drivers for wifi or graphics. In turn, the wifi is not working. Are there any open source wifi drivers I could use? Also, how big of a threat using these proprietary drivers could be for privacy? I opted it out because of privacy, but i am not an expert and my computer still runs on Apple's firmware and the intel ME is active, so not sure whether in this case avoiding the proprietary drivers brings more privacy or just headaches. Please, if anyone could shed some light on this it would be really appreciated. thank you

Welcome to the Forum!

Proprietary Drivers are not directly a Privacy Issue. That simply mean that the Source Code is not open and You can't easily take a Look at it. Theoretically, You could hide in this Way Privacy-unrespecting Stuff. But that isn't directly a general Issue.

The good Thing about this Drivers is that they made for the Hardware where it is needed. when You have Concerns, You could simply take the Driver Name and search with it for Privacy Issues or Security Problem/Concerns.

So, You could simply look in the ''Additional Drivers'' Tab in Software & Updates if there are Drivers offered, then look if You find some not-so-good Info's about it. And if not, install it. That makes it easier.

4 Likes

In addition to the above: To install on a machine lacking internet access, you often can temporarily tether your phone as a Wifi Hotspot to gain internet access from your computer.

1 Like

This is why I am an advocate for installing the proprietary drivers on install, without them, you end up in a situation like this. I am glad that Aravisian pointed out phone tethering, not a whole lot of people know about it.

I've used such a feature to provide internet to a tablet before, during a power outage. If the computer's WIFI adapter required a driver to use wireless capabilities, hopefully the OP could use a wired USB connection.


1 Like

i reinstalled it with the proprietary drivers, however, it is not 100 per cent. Does anyone know a good technician or very knowledgeable person that could help me remotely to fix all of the issues in this newly Zorin OS Pro installed on this Mac? (Keyboard does not light up, it does not go into sleep mode, control c and control v does not work, only with the trackpad, and wifi is not working properly). I tried Zorin Pro support but it is very limited (understandable, i am not complaining) and where I am right now, i couldn't find any technician that works with Linux that is knowledgeable. Thank you.

For the time being, the best course of action would be to start a thread for each individual issue.
Some solutions may affect other issues - if so, you can mark that thread as solved with a linkback.

OK, i will do that. Thank you.

1 Like