Congratulations to the Debian team! An important change appears to be the inclusion of non-free firmware by default in the official install image for the first time, as a result of this vote: https://www.debian.org/vote/2022/vote_003 Intriguing. I feel a little torn on this. One the one hand, I appreciate being able to install Debian from an official image onto a bothersome device. On the other, I can't help but feel…
For devices which have firmware, does it matter whether the firmware is loaded by the OS rather than hardcoded inside the device? The former at least gives an opportunity to fix bugs. And if I'm not mistaken, this isn't about kernel blobs (which run on the CPU as kernel code), only code that gets loaded on devices (including CPU microcode).
Debian 12 “Bookworm”
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Re: Debian 12 “Bookworm”
#22Congratulations to the Debian team! An important change appears to be the inclusion of non-free firmware by default in the official install image for the first time, as a result of this vote: https://www.debian.org/vote/2022/vote_003 Intriguing. I feel a little torn on this. One the one hand, I appreciate being able to install Debian from an official image onto a bothersome device. On the other, I can't help but feel…
The software needs hardware to run, and the whole point of the software is to make the hardware useful. If you can't use the hardware, what's the point of the software?
In my book, freedom is a function of usefulness. No amount of redistributable source code has any value to me if I can't run it.
Enabling the use of hardware I already own is not a compromise, it's a solution. It's what operating systems exist for. Debian is fulfilling its primary function. I'm glad that this necessity was finally recognised.
Re: Debian 12 “Bookworm”
#23Do you recommend switching from Ubuntu TLS to this one? Even to a heavy LXC and multipass user? What had kept me on Ubuntu so far has been their out of box laptop support (I.e. WiFi drivers).
Re: Debian 12 “Bookworm”
#24Re: Debian 12 “Bookworm”
#25Do you recommend switching from Ubuntu TLS to this one? Even to a heavy LXC and multipass user? What had kept me on Ubuntu so far has been their out of box laptop support (I.e. WiFi drivers).
I switched away from Ubuntu when they started putting advertisements in the motd and login screens.
What I did not like was Firefox taking 20s to start.
Re: Debian 12 “Bookworm”
#26Re: Debian 12 “Bookworm”
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
I switched away from Ubuntu when they started putting advertisements in the motd and login screens.
That didn't bother me much as it is "advertisement" about things related to my system. What I did not like was Firefox taking 20s to start.
Re: Debian 12 “Bookworm”
#28Congratulations to the Debian team! An important change appears to be the inclusion of non-free firmware by default in the official install image for the first time, as a result of this vote: https://www.debian.org/vote/2022/vote_003 Intriguing. I feel a little torn on this. One the one hand, I appreciate being able to install Debian from an official image onto a bothersome device. On the other, I can't help but feel…
For devices which have firmware, does it matter whether the firmware is loaded by the OS rather than hardcoded inside the device? The former at least gives an opportunity to fix bugs. And if I'm not mistaken, this isn't about kernel blobs (which run on the CPU as kernel code), only code that gets loaded on devices (including CPU microcode).
If it can go wrong it will, and if software isn't free then its owners will do things that the users really do not like. In this case, if they can fix bugs they can reduce functionality post-hoc. That is consequential. It is better to have freedom or certainty as to what a device does.
Re: Debian 12 “Bookworm”
#29Testing this out in a VM. I want to move away from Ubuntu (honestly, from SNAPs)
Perhaps this is a good opportunity to try a combination of Debian, for general system stability, and Nix, for specific tools where I need newer releases? Has anyone tried this combination before? If so, how did you find it?
Re: Debian 12 “Bookworm”
#30The gift that keeps on giving, runs perfect on my headless 10-year old gaming-PC turned server in the basement.