Virtual RMS [VRMS]

[Feathers McGraw]

Today I discovered vrms: Virtual Richard M Stallman. It supposedly gives you a list of all the non-free software on your system (I think it only works for things installed using package management like apt-get).

feathers-mcgraw@Hobbs-T440s:~$ vrms | cowsay -f gnu
 ________________________________________                                                                                                                                                     
/  No non-free or contrib packages       \                                                                                                                                                    
| installed on Hobbs-T440s! rms would be |                                                                                                                                                    
\ proud.                                 /                                                                                                                                                    
 ----------------------------------------                                                                                                                                                     
    \               ,-----._                                                                                                                                                                  
  .  \         .  ,'        `-.__,------._                                                                                                                                                    
 //   \      __\\'                        `-.                                                                                                                                                 
((    _____-'___))                           |                                                                                                                                                
 `:='/     (alf_/                            |
 `.=|      |='                               |
    |)   O |                                  \
    |      |                               /\  \
    |     /                          .    /  \  \
    |    .-..__            ___   .--' \  |\   \  |
   |o o  |     ``--.___.  /   `-'      \  \\   \ |
    `--''        '  .' / /             |  | |   | \
                 |  | / /              |  | |   mmm
                 |  ||  |              | /| |
                 ( .' \ \              || | |
                 | |   \ \            // / /
                 | |    \ \          || |_|
                /  |    |_/         /_|
               /__/

Seems too good to be true, I thought I was bound to have installed some proprietary codecs or something at some point.

Curious to see what your output is?

...lol

[vinnywright]

 vinny@vinnys-HP-G62:~$ vrms | cowsay -f tux
 _________________________________________
/  Non-free packages installed on         \
| vinnys-HP-G62                           |
|                                         |
| rar Archiver for .rar files unrar       |
| Unarchiver for .rar files (non-free     |
| version)                                |
|                                         |
| Contrib packages installed on           |
| vinnys-HP-G62                           |
|                                         |
| conky-all highly configurable system    |
| monitor (all features enabl             |
| flashplugin-installer Adobe Flash       |
| Player plugin installer                 |
| googleearth-package utility to          |
| automatically build a Debian package of |
| Goo ttf-mscorefonts-installer Installer |
| for Microsoft TrueType core fonts       |
| winetricks Microsoft Windows            |
| Compatibility Layer (winetricks)        |
|                                         |
| 2 non-free packages, 0.1% of 2700       |
| installed packages.                     |
|                                         |
| 5 contrib packages, 0.2% of 2700        |
\ installed packages.                     /
 -----------------------------------------
   \
    \
        .--.
       |o_o |
       |:_/ |
      //   \ \
     (|     | )
    /'\_   _/`\
    \___)=(___/

VINNY

[vinnywright]

or hear ,,,,,,,,,,,, the vrms | cowsay -f tux | lolcat ,,,,,,,,for pretty colors





VINNY

[Feathers McGraw]

Very artistic!! Lol

[vinnywright]

LOL ,,,,,,,,,, nice tool however

VINNY

[SteveRiley]

Mine:

steve@t520:~$ [B]vrms[/B]
                Non-free packages installed on t520

adobe-flash-properties-kde          KDE control panel Adobe Flash Player plugin version 11
adobe-flashplugin                   Adobe Flash Player plugin version 11
libcuda1-340                        NVIDIA CUDA runtime library
nvidia-340                          NVIDIA binary driver - version 340.24
nvidia-libopencl1-340               NVIDIA OpenCL Driver and ICD Loader library
nvidia-opencl-icd-340               NVIDIA OpenCL ICD
viber                               Free Text & Calls.

                Contrib packages installed on t520

nvidia-settings                     Tool for configuring the NVIDIA graphics driver
virtualbox-4.3                      Oracle VM VirtualBox

  7 non-free packages, 0.4% of 1818 installed packages.
  2 contrib packages, 0.1% of 1818 installed packages.

So it's just looking at the Debian repo archive classifications? Uh, yup:

steve@t520:~$ [b]man vrms[/b]
...
This program analyzes the currently-installed package list on a Debian GNU/Linux system, and reports the non-free and contrib packages that are currently installed to stdout. In some cases, such as regarding documentation licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License with invariant sections, the opinions of Richard M. Stallman and the Debian project have diverged since this program was originally written. In such cases, this program follows the definition of freedom embodied in the Debian Free Software Guidelines.
...

[Qqmike]

I guess I'm living a simple Kubuntu life here (in 12.04) ...

Non-free packages installed on mike-desktop
skype-bin client for Skype VOIP and instant messaging service -

Contrib packages installed on mike-desktop
flashplugin-installer Adobe Flash Player plugin installer

1 non-free packages, 0.1% of 1519 installed packages.
1 contrib packages, 0.1% of 1519 installed packages.

[MoonRise]

Not so here.

              Non-free packages installed on Panther

libcuda1-331-updates                NVIDIA CUDA runtime library
libfaac0                            AAC audio encoder (library)
mame                                Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator (MAME)
mame-extra                          Additional files for the Multiple Arcade Machine Emula
mame-tools                          Tools for MAME and MESS
mess-data                           Data files for the Multi Emulator Super System (MESS)
nvidia-319-updates                  Transitional package for nvidia-319-updates
nvidia-331-updates                  NVIDIA binary driver - version 331.38
nvidia-opencl-icd-331-updates       NVIDIA OpenCL ICD
teamviewer                          TeamViewer (Remote Control Application)
unrar                               Unarchiver for .rar files (non-free version)

   Non-free packages with status other than installed on Panther

nvidia-libopencl1-331-updates       ( dei)  NVIDIA OpenCL Driver and ICD Loader library
oracle-java7-installer              ( dei)  Oracle Java(TM) Development Kit (JDK) 7

               Contrib packages installed on Panther

flashplugin-installer               Adobe Flash Player plugin installer
nvidia-settings                     Tool for configuring the NVIDIA graphics driver
ttf-mscorefonts-installer           Installer for Microsoft TrueType core fonts
vice                                Versatile Commodore Emulator
winetricks                          Microsoft Windows Compatibility Layer (winetricks)

  13 non-free packages, 0.5% of 2595 installed packages.
  5 contrib packages, 0.2% of 2595 installed packages.

[Snowhog]

So it's just looking at the Debian repo archive classifications? Uh, yup:

steve@t520:~$ [B]man vrms[/B]
...
This program analyzes the currently-installed package list on a Debian GNU/Linux system, and reports the non-free and contrib packages that are currently installed to stdout. In some cases, such as regarding documentation licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License with invariant sections, the opinions of Richard M. Stallman and the Debian project have diverged since this program was originally written. In such cases, this program follows the definition of freedom embodied in the Debian Free Software Guidelines.
...

Tsk, tsk. Cherry picking from the man information. A tad further on in the description:

Note that vrms is not limited to Debian systems only (which means that
it also works with Debian-derived distributions such as Ubuntu). It is
also not limited to Linux-based systems.

[Feathers McGraw]

...not limited to Linux-based systems.

I wonder how it would work if it wasn't a linux based system? Presumably it would have to at least be UNIX-like with a similar repository-based package management system.

Something like vrms for Android would be interesting... there have been a couple of threads here recently about all the non-free bits in Android.

[SteveRiley]

Well, vRMS may work with Debian-derived derived distros and things that are not Debian, but the language it uses seems very Debianish. Debian has three archive sections: main, non-free, and contrib. Packages in contrib are themselves free, but depend on packages in non-free. Ubuntu has four archive sections: main, restricted, universe, and multiverse. Main and universe contain free software; restricted and multiverse contain non-free software. Packages in main and restricted are supported by Canonical; packages in universe and multiverse aren't.

There is no one-to-one mapping between Debian and Ubuntu. Inside a .deb package is a file called control which contains a line with the header Section:. Interestingly, when I spot-checked a few of the packages on my system that vRMS claims are "non-free" or "contrib," this information is missing from the control file. So I'm not sure, exactly, how the utility is making its determination on Ubuntu.