Debian APT 2.6 Released With Updates For Non-Free Firmware Handling

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Debian APT 2.6 Released With Updates For Non-Free Firmware Handling

Debian developers today released APT 2.6 as the newest version of this package manager that will ship as part of the upcoming Debian 12 "Bookworm" release...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Debian-APT-2.6-Released

[sha256sum]

Hopefully Debian is going to be Stallman approved this year.

[RahulSundaram]

Hopefully Debian is going to be Stallman approved this year.

That wouldn't make much sense. If anything, Debian's recent change to integrate firmware into the official installation media makes that not viable and puts them in a similar position to Fedora and other common distros.

[kylew77]

That wouldn't make much sense. If anything, Debian's recent change to integrate firmware into the official installation media makes that not viable and puts them in a similar position to Fedora and other common distros.

I agree, the FSF previously dinged Debian for having the ABILITY to install non-free firmware easily. Now that they are INCLUDING it on the ISO they will be even further from what the FSF wants.

[EphemeralEft]

My firmware packages disappeared weeks ago, and it was only after looking into it that I found out I had to add that new section to my Apt sources. So I’m not sure how this change is being “released” today.

Obligatory comment that I know it’s a free distro, I know Debian is mostly volunteer-driven, I appreciate the work they do and overall I still think it’s a good distro. I’m just annoyed at how poorly (and un-Debian-like) they made this change.

[SoongVilda]

Debian APT 2.6 Released With Updates For Non-Free Firmware Handling

What does that mean? I thought everything is just a package and you don't need anything special. I install any kind of firmware in a pretty intuitive and simple way.

sudo pacman -S <package>

Some examples:
sudo pacman -S aic94xx-firmware
sudo pacman -S linux-firmware

I totally didn't get why anyone wants to do all of this mess about non-free firmware.
Similar to NVIDIA drivers, installed just once, configured nvidia-hooks to keep initramfs updated and done. I came back to my PC after 3 months, run an update and everything is fine, non-free drivers work perfectly fine on my GTX960.

[slalomsk8er]

My firmware packages disappeared weeks ago, and it was only after looking into it that I found out I had to add that new section to my Apt sources. So I’m not sure how this change is being “released” today.

Obligatory comment that I know it’s a free distro, I know Debian is mostly volunteer-driven, I appreciate the work they do and overall I still think it’s a good distro. I’m just annoyed at how poorly (and un-Debian-like) they made this change.

Which version of Debian are you running? You could have alpha/beta tested this, if you run unstable or testing

[DRanged]

Which version of Debian are you running? You could have alpha/beta tested this, if you run unstable or testing

Just butting in. The firmware updates for Debian testing aka bookworm were already gone in January this year. Found it on a Reddit post I had to add the non-free-firmware in my sources.list. Wasn't so much of an issue for me as I can get the firmware from kernel.org but it is the convenience having it available through the repo's.

[waxhead]

Well I run the 'testing' distro and got my balls thoroughly licked since I was not aware that firmware was moved to another subrepo.

In any case I welcome the change. With the non-free-firmware included onto the installer media it would be a small deal to allow the user to choose between a fully free install, or at least try that first before resorting to the non-free-firmware.

Making the choice easy and flexible should inn theory make the threshold for being fully free lower which FSF should applaud really... This is something everybody should understand unless you are under 25 and just expect everything to work without understanding the hard work that allowed for such freedom in the first place.