<story><title>Debian and firmware</title><url>https://blog.einval.com/2022/04/19#firmware-what-do-we-do</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mschuster91</author><text>I get the trouble for networking chipsets, but not for the video card - &lt;i&gt;all&lt;/i&gt; x86 systems should be able to fall back to ye goode olde days of at least a text console using the old BIOS interface. A default setup of &lt;i&gt;any&lt;/i&gt; Linux distribution should in my opinion at least automatically detect if there is something lacking for a framebuffer console or a GUI, and fall back to a plain console.</text></item><item><author>fxtentacle</author><text>I believe there should be an official non-free repository (akin to Ubuntu&amp;#x27;s) which users can enable offline, meaning it needs to be stored on the official CD.&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;p&gt;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CD or on a fully installed system is just a recipe for users to get frustrated while they are trying to follow a half-outdated tutorial on one of those spammy tech support blogs.&lt;p&gt;So in my opinion, the most common blobs should be cached by default, but not activated by default.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 ;)</text></item><item><author>b5n</author><text>As a long time Debian user I&amp;#x27;m reluctant to criticize developer ergonomics as I&amp;#x27;m not an _active_ contributor. That being said, _as a user_, I&amp;#x27;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_ and downloading the firmware included image) further dilutes the project&amp;#x27;s free software position and will encourage users to install software that does not respect their freedoms. If users never brush up against the inconvenience they&amp;#x27;ll be much less likely to seek out hardware alternatives or even educate themselves on the topic at all, this is damaging to the community as a whole.&lt;p&gt;I know I&amp;#x27;m in the minority, and expect my opinion to be weighted accordingly, but principle is a key factor I use when choosing anything - including software. My loyalty to Debian would be significantly impacted by such a change.&lt;p&gt;Is Debian missing projected growth KPI&amp;#x27;s or shedding users? Is this a key hurdle to onboarding new contributors? I&amp;#x27;m aware there may be other considerations that those actively participating in the community or leadership may be aware of that I am not, and I might be ignorant to the full value of the proposition. Debian is amazing and I have the upmost respect for everyone involved over the decades, but a move in a direction that weakens its position on non-free components would most likely drive me to using Guix exclusively.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tremon</author><text>This isn&amp;#x27;t what the radeon driver does for AMD gpu&amp;#x27;s, and hasn&amp;#x27;t for years: loading the driver automatically enables the full rendering engine and disables the VESA modes, even if no firmware has been loaded. Which means that on a normal system with radeon.ko present but not the firmware files, you get a few seconds of kernel output followed by a black screen. For the systems where I don&amp;#x27;t want the firmware (servers), I must be very careful to blacklist the radeon driver or I completely lose the local console.&lt;p&gt;This has been the case since the SI chipsets in 2012. I&amp;#x27;m not sure if the fault lies fully with the driver, maybe the hardware doesn&amp;#x27;t allow querying the state of the engine firmware before enabling the engine.</text></comment>
<story><title>Debian and firmware</title><url>https://blog.einval.com/2022/04/19#firmware-what-do-we-do</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mschuster91</author><text>I get the trouble for networking chipsets, but not for the video card - &lt;i&gt;all&lt;/i&gt; x86 systems should be able to fall back to ye goode olde days of at least a text console using the old BIOS interface. A default setup of &lt;i&gt;any&lt;/i&gt; Linux distribution should in my opinion at least automatically detect if there is something lacking for a framebuffer console or a GUI, and fall back to a plain console.</text></item><item><author>fxtentacle</author><text>I believe there should be an official non-free repository (akin to Ubuntu&amp;#x27;s) which users can enable offline, meaning it needs to be stored on the official CD.&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;p&gt;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 ;)</text></item><item><author>b5n</author><text>As a long time Debian user I&amp;#x27;m reluctant to criticize developer ergonomics as I&amp;#x27;m not an _active_ contributor. That being said, _as a user_, I&amp;#x27;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_ and downloading the firmware included image) further dilutes the project&amp;#x27;s free software position and will encourage users to install software that does not respect their freedoms. If users never brush up against the inconvenience they&amp;#x27;ll be much less likely to seek out hardware alternatives or even educate themselves on the topic at all, this is damaging to the community as a whole.&lt;p&gt;I know I&amp;#x27;m in the minority, and expect my opinion to be weighted accordingly, but principle is a key factor I use when choosing anything - including software. My loyalty to Debian would be significantly impacted by such a change.&lt;p&gt;Is Debian missing projected growth KPI&amp;#x27;s or shedding users? Is this a key hurdle to onboarding new contributors? I&amp;#x27;m aware there may be other considerations that those actively participating in the community or leadership may be aware of that I am not, and I might be ignorant to the full value of the proposition. Debian is amazing and I have the upmost respect for everyone involved over the decades, but a move in a direction that weakens its position on non-free components would most likely drive me to using Guix exclusively.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>fxtentacle</author><text>You&amp;#x27;re correct, there might be a text-mode fallback. It&amp;#x27;s just that it is effectively useless for me. If I don&amp;#x27;t have network access, how am I going to install the firmware for the network card?&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s why I believe the most common firmware .deb packages should be cached during installation so that they are on-disk in case they are needed.</text></comment>