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Debian and firmware

blog.einval.com

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Re: Debian and firmware

#71

Post by totetsu »

ethbr0 wrote: post #48
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…

In the end, it should distill down to: "What is the likelihood of closed-firmware-blob hardware manufacturers changing their behavior because of Debian?" vs "What is the likelihood of fewer people using Debian because their installer is more difficult?" IMHO, the odds aren't good that ideological purity is going to have any net result on hardware manufacturers. So you're really just shooting yourself in the foot so y…

Why cant FSF groups just do what FANG do, and make it easy for users in the first place, then once you have them in your walled garden pull the ol' ideological switcharoo.

Re: Debian and firmware

#72

Post by pabs3 »

outsomnia wrote: post #65
pabs3 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That firmware update was made possible by the fwupd software project (containing various firmware updaters) and the LVFS project, a service for hardware vendors to upload their proprietary firmware updates for mice, the BIOS/UEFI and other devices to. https://fwupd.org/ While it is great, it doesn't solve the problem that this post is talking about; when devices have no pre-installed firmware and expect you to upload…

> it doesn't solve the problem that this post is talking about; when devices have no pre-installed firmware and expect you to upload (proprietary) firmware on every boot. This is usually things like WiFi chips, GPUs, Ethernet etc. Same as Fedora, Debian seems to package linux-firmware? https://packages.debian.org/sid/firmware-misc-nonfree

Right, and linux-firmware contains mostly proprietary firmware. There is a small amount of libre firmware in it but that doesn't get built from source. The post is about directing users to an installer ISO that installs the proprietary firmware by default.

Re: Debian and firmware

#73

Post by p0d »

I am a 20yr linux user. I got a new HP laptop recently and decided to try Debian. To my surprise Debian didn't recognise my network adapter and would not let me continue the installation. I wrongly assumed the installer would install, let me fix the adapter.

I read around and used an installer which apparently had proprietary drivers. Same issue, couldn't install.

At this stage I returned to Ubuntu.

Re: Debian and firmware

#74

Post by mjg59 »

hypothesis wrote: post #69
mjg59 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is that a function of Linux Desktop simply being more capable nowadays? I don't think so - it's more a function of hardware becoming more complicated, and vendors choosing to put a lot of the logic in firmware rather than putting it in ROM because there's a much lower chance of them getting it right first time now than there was in the past.

Is hardware becoming more complicated without being more capable? I just think that we’re taking lots of things for granted nowadays, which require complexity to be managed successfully. ROM to firmware creep is understandable, given flexibility that you mentioned. But to an end-user, is there a difference between having a blob in ROM vs firmware, if both are closed source?

> Is hardware becoming more complicated without being more capable?

I don't think so. Every component on my system that runs firmware is significantly more complicated than the iterations that didn't. 802.11ax is much harder than 802.11b, for instance.

> But to an end-user, is there a difference between having a blob in ROM vs firmware, if both are closed source?

Yeah, bugs that are discovered after release can be fixed.

Re: Debian and firmware

#75

Post by saagarjha »

totetsu wrote: post #71
ethbr0 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the end, it should distill down to: "What is the likelihood of closed-firmware-blob hardware manufacturers changing their behavior because of Debian?" vs "What is the likelihood of fewer people using Debian because their installer is more difficult?" IMHO, the odds aren't good that ideological purity is going to have any net result on hardware manufacturers. So you're really just shooting yourself in the foot so y…

Why cant FSF groups just do what FANG do, and make it easy for users in the first place, then once you have them in your walled garden pull the ol' ideological switcharoo.

It goes against the whole point of user freedom, which is kind of like starting a nonviolent movement and then pointing guns at people if they refuse to join.

Re: Debian and firmware

#76

Post by fxtentacle »

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 believe there should be an official non-free repository (akin to Ubuntu's) which users can enable offline, meaning it needs to be stored on the official CD.

Enabling it should display a big scary warning about handing over partial control of your machine to greedy faceless megacorps who will throw you under the bus in a heartbeat if that makes them money. Maybe add an illustration of a robot terminator, to really drive the point home.

Yes, I agree that a default Debian configuration should be clean. But I also know the reality of needing at least Atheros (Wifi), Intel (Ethernet), and NVIDIA firmware blobs to get my tower to boot correctly. Not including any firmware repository on the CD or on a fully installed system is just a recipe for users to get frustrated while they are trying to follow a half-outdated tutorial on one of those spammy tech support blogs.

So in my opinion, the most common blobs should be cached by default, but not activated by default. If the machine boots without them, they can be deleted upon first reboot. If not, we can let the user decide if they are willing to compromise their principles in order to boot the system ;)

Re: Debian and firmware

#77

Post by mschuster91 »

Maursault wrote: post #33

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 un…

The amount of people capable of doing firmware work is extremely low, and the amount of documentation available that's needed to write firmware for highly embedded systems is even lower - not to mention that the stuff that is implemented in this kind of firmware is extremely complex and if anything RF is involved it gets even hairier because of compliance to standards and legal regulations. Last thing an open source dev wants is complaints from users that their home got raided by the FCC for operating a noisy transmitter that interrupts service for someone else.

There isn't even enough manpower to get the Raspberry Pi, the world's most used embedded system for tinkerers, a fully blob-free experience - it's madness to expect that for systems like GPUs that are orders of magnitude more complex than that.

Re: Debian and firmware

#78

Post by outsomnia »

pabs3 wrote: post #72
outsomnia wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it doesn't solve the problem that this post is talking about; when devices have no pre-installed firmware and expect you to upload (proprietary) firmware on every boot. This is usually things like WiFi chips, GPUs, Ethernet etc. Same as Fedora, Debian seems to package linux-firmware? https://packages.debian.org/sid/firmware-misc-nonfree

Right, and linux-firmware contains mostly proprietary firmware. There is a small amount of libre firmware in it but that doesn't get built from source. The post is about directing users to an installer ISO that installs the proprietary firmware by default.

I see, thanks for explaining.

Re: Debian and firmware

#79

Post by techie128 »

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_…

> If users never brush up against the inconvenience they'll be much less likely to seek out hardware alternatives

I think you got it backwards. Users will seek out SOFTWARE alternatives. They're easier to change than the hardware. They're likelier to go the Ubuntu or Linux Mint route than to die on a Debian hill.

Re: Debian and firmware

#80

Post by jyrkesh »

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…

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

Have you told this story anywhere else already? I'd love to read it. In a past life I worked very close to Windows Server, but I mostly selfhost Linux at home now.

What is it mostly identity related? I miss AD sometimes...or maybe storage? The SMB stack is pretty good too.

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