21–30 of 180 posts
As a long time Debian user I'm reluctant to criticize developer ergonomics as I'm not an _active_ contributor. That being said, _as a user_, I've not had any issue locating and using non-free firmware when required, and I would be disappointed to see the project change course by including non-free components in an offical manner. Removing the slight inconvenience (literally clicking a link _on the installation page_…
Principles matter!
Do not agree. Let the countless others do that. Can anyone say with a straight face that there is anything wrong with Debian's vision or principles merely existing somewhere in the world? Ok, so they exist somewhere in the world, in Debian. And it predates you. Debian didn't come along and fuck up your life. There is no basis for any kind of "take it back" idea to "fix" Debian. If you don't subscribe to those princip…
OpenBSD is in a similar boat and continues to fight the good fight. The developers continue to reach out to the hardware manufacturers to get permission to include firmware in OpenBSD without an NDA. Sometimes they're successful, but, more often than not, they're not. I think if more of the open source community stood steadfast in this regard, more progress could be made here. The saddest part of all this, perhaps, i…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Principles matter!
They are the only reason I use Debian at all.
https://wiki.debian.org/Firmware/Open
As you can see, it is very minimal.
I hope Debian ignores them.
I still live back in the days when Fedora would give you a pop up to install non-free drivers ("additional software" or something like that).
I have been using Debian as my daily driver for almost 6 months now and Linux in general for years - I still have no idea how the video drivers work. I have no idea how to install them, which ones mean what, what's free, non-free, optimal, professional - I have no idea how any of it works and it's a source of frustration for me.
What is mesa? Why do people tell me not to install the video drivers from the Radeon website. When I download and install the drivers from the Radeon website there are lots of errors but it still seems to work - did I install them wrong? How to I update them?
When I install the `apt install firmware-amd-graphics` I get loads of warning, but it works so I ignore them.
What is going on and why isn't it as simple as Window's where I run an executable and a setup wizard does the rest?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They are the only reason I use Debian at all.
This could be seen as a benefit and a downside. It’s basically suggesting that you find other distros nicer to use but chose to use the less nice one due to principals. Most users will pick the nicer to use one.
And many of the other top Linux distributions are Debian derivatives which both participate in the community and provide the alternate experience.
Upholding its principles is the way Debian distinguishes itself. If you don't like it, use Mint or something.