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Debian and firmware

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Re: Debian and firmware

#31

Post by bruce511 »

josephcsible wrote: post #23

I'm usually on the FSF's side about everything, but this is one place where I disagree with them and agree with this article. A free OS with free firmware is definitely better than a free OS with proprietary firmware, but both of those are way better than a proprietary OS with proprietary firmware. By making the middle ground difficult, a lot of users have to choose between ideological purity and working hardware, an…

100% this. A decade ago I needed to replace some internal Linux file servers. I was keen to try ZFS, and so I tried BSD. Naturally on new hardware. Turns out BSD didn't support the on-board ether net. Tried a bunch of network cards from the cupboard, no support their either. Opportunity lost.

Switched to Windows server (and was blown away by how polished that was, but that's another story.)

I get the advantages of free software, I really do, but this sort of neglect of usefulness in the name of ideological purity does not win converts.

On the other hand who cares? Free Software does not need to grow, it fulfils a purpose for those who want to be ideological pure, and I accept that is a valuable thing. Chasing converts at the cost of purity may just end up being no-man's-land.

Perhaps what the author is looking for I'd a debian derivitive, not debian itself?

Re: Debian and firmware

#32

Post by ggm »

b5n wrote: post #14

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_…

I have had some doubts about Dell installs which had non-free blob dependencies which were "insert USB stick and hit enter" -when I am doing remote install via virtual media. Mainly this was for broadcom ethernets.

I found in the end, proceeding to install and then post-install patching was easier but tedious.

If you have access to USB slots, this is a non-problem. If it were possible to find and make and maintain "CD with a bit of the blobset glued in" I'd be happier frankly.

Re: Debian and firmware

#33

Post by Maursault »

I hesitate to post, but I respect Debian. Firmware has gotten so large, all distributions and OS communities would benefit from focusing on it as a project to provide free firmware. I don't know how large the firmware developer community is. Firmware space has gotten so large, an entire OS could fit in there. What if there were a miniDebian, or miniFreeBSD, that was a virtuous but smaller reflection of the OS, not unlike iOS and macOS? I'm not sure if crypto or key signing by hw makers, under the excuse of security, makes this impossible, but I'd really like to have more options with the firmware on my machines. Like, why can't I run VMWare ESXi from firmware? It should fit in there. If if is technically possible, it should be allowed; we pay for the hardware, it belongs to us. Why is this even a thing? Who are the bad guys here? Why are they screwing with us?

Re: Debian and firmware

#34

Post by pabs3 »

ggm wrote: post #32
b5n wrote: post #14

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_…

I have had some doubts about Dell installs which had non-free blob dependencies which were "insert USB stick and hit enter" -when I am doing remote install via virtual media. Mainly this was for broadcom ethernets. I found in the end, proceeding to install and then post-install patching was easier but tedious. If you have access to USB slots, this is a non-problem. If it were possible to find and make and maintain "C…

The CDs with blobs have been available for years, the post is mostly about making those CDs the default user experience.

Re: Debian and firmware

#35

Post by b5n »

ggm wrote: post #32
b5n wrote: post #14

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_…

I have had some doubts about Dell installs which had non-free blob dependencies which were "insert USB stick and hit enter" -when I am doing remote install via virtual media. Mainly this was for broadcom ethernets. I found in the end, proceeding to install and then post-install patching was easier but tedious. If you have access to USB slots, this is a non-problem. If it were possible to find and make and maintain "C…

> if it were possible to find and make and maintain "CD with a bit of the blobset glued in" I'd be happier frankly.

As mentioned in my original comment, those images already exist, and are linked to on the Debian installation page.

Re: Debian and firmware

#36

Post by ggm »

b5n wrote: post #35
ggm wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have had some doubts about Dell installs which had non-free blob dependencies which were "insert USB stick and hit enter" -when I am doing remote install via virtual media. Mainly this was for broadcom ethernets. I found in the end, proceeding to install and then post-install patching was easier but tedious. If you have access to USB slots, this is a non-problem. If it were possible to find and make and maintain "C…

> if it were possible to find and make and maintain "CD with a bit of the blobset glued in" I'd be happier frankly. As mentioned in my original comment, those images already exist, and are linked to on the Debian installation page.

Skim reading earns dismerit points! Thanks for pointing this out, I'll try harder to use them next install I do.

Re: Debian and firmware

#37

Post by diffeomorphism »

mastax wrote: post #6

Almost every hardware device has one or more CPUs on it. As Foone joked, "USB is a standard to let you connect 8051 microcontrollers to PCs." Given the choice between burned-in firmware and externally-loaded firmware, the latter seems clearly superior from an openness perspective. The firmware binary and the loading mechanism opens up the opportunity for reverse engineering, modification, and replacement open firmwar…

> if that policy were successful at promoting.

Not disagreeing that policies should be made with success in mind. But by the same reasoning "vegan" should include the top 5 most popular meat dishes as exceptions. This would easily make it more popular, more accessible and probably much more successful at reducing meat usage over all. The issue is that the definition of "success" might be entirely unacceptable. Just like "entirely free but...." might be unacceptable.

Re: Debian and firmware

#38

Post by pabs3 »

bruce511 wrote: post #31
josephcsible wrote: post #23

I'm usually on the FSF's side about everything, but this is one place where I disagree with them and agree with this article. A free OS with free firmware is definitely better than a free OS with proprietary firmware, but both of those are way better than a proprietary OS with proprietary firmware. By making the middle ground difficult, a lot of users have to choose between ideological purity and working hardware, an…

100% this. A decade ago I needed to replace some internal Linux file servers. I was keen to try ZFS, and so I tried BSD. Naturally on new hardware. Turns out BSD didn't support the on-board ether net. Tried a bunch of network cards from the cupboard, no support their either. Opportunity lost. Switched to Windows server (and was blown away by how polished that was, but that's another story.) I get the advantages of fr…

Debian itself provides the blobs for years, the post is mostly about making those CDs with blobs the default user experience for Debian itself, not for derivatives, some of which provide blobs by default.

Re: Debian and firmware

#39

Post by Barrin92 »

cube00 wrote: post #2

As bad as it is in the short term the only way we'll see long term change is to keep the friction on. It's this friction that forces the change of habit to support manufacturers who open their firmware. If it's seamless then there's no incentive to seek out the open option next time you buy. In my personal case nVidia stopped supporting my graphics card and eventually their binary blob stopped working with the newer…

>it's this friction that forces the change of habit to support manufacturers who open their firmware.

You can only force anyone to do anything if you have power. If you don't have power you're just a weird guy screaming from a soapbox and people are going to ignore you. No offense but do you think nvidia cares about your boycott? There's no shortage of graphics card buyers.

I assume the non-free version of Debian sees significant amounts of downloads, maybe at this point more than the free version, so the situation is obviously quite awful or this post would not exist.

Re: Debian and firmware

#40

Post by pabs3 »

cube00 wrote: post #2

As bad as it is in the short term the only way we'll see long term change is to keep the friction on. It's this friction that forces the change of habit to support manufacturers who open their firmware. If it's seamless then there's no incentive to seek out the open option next time you buy. In my personal case nVidia stopped supporting my graphics card and eventually their binary blob stopped working with the newer…

One way that vendors have released libre firmware is when someone already working on the proprietary firmware convinced their bosses that libre firmware is a good idea. This happened with two of the open WiFi firmware projects.
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