Installing Debian on modern hardware

That proprietary firmware (which you are already running, only it's the "okay" copy embedded into the device instead of the "evil" one that the host CPU is being asked to transfer) can have significant security implications. So the worst case is that you suffer a data breach, get sued or fined, losing a pile of money, your business, and in extreme cases, possibly your liberty.

> I can relate to the sentiment, that there has to be a significant convenience hurdle to entice users to complain to hardware manufactures for not supporting free software distributions. But I also believe there must be a better way than to put such a high burden on prospective users.

The thing is, most folks don't deploy servers (or whatever) for the heck of it; equipment gets deployed because it needs to accomplish specific tasks, and thus needs to be fit for purpose. Why struggle with Debian on your hardware when Ubuntu, CentOS, (or worse) Windows running a Linux VM under WSL2 just works out of the box?

(FWIW, the only proprietary userspace stuff on my servers are the RAID administration tools. But while the rest of it is all Free Software, Linux and everything else is running on top of/alongside highly proprietary system & peripheral firmware)