The disabling of hardware codecs in community distributions

Posted Oct 17, 2022 9:49 UTC (Mon) by amacater (subscriber, #790)
In reply to: The disabling of hardware codecs in community distributions by Conan_Kudo
Parent article: The disabling of hardware codecs in community distributions

The Debian firmware GR is about non-free firmware (for things like WiFi) and not "all of what's in Debian non-free" - that's the *whole* point. The installer will install the firmware - see the contents of firmware-linux-nonfree for things that install in /lib/firmware - but will also offer the end user the chance to back out and install only a free system.

This is shipping binaries provided by the vendors and licensed as distributable. That's the primary reason that they're non-free. Debian doesn't have source, can't fix problems if they arise etc. That's the rationale for segmenting Debian's non-free into firmware (which almost all Linux distributions will then distribute identically without significant concerns) and the rest of Debian-provided non-free firmware.

The disabling of hardware codecs in community distributions

Posted Oct 17, 2022 10:21 UTC (Mon) by Conan_Kudo (subscriber, #103240) [Link]

Yes, but that also includes the AMD and NVIDIA GPU firmware, which are required to make the open drivers for both GPUs functional. That firmware means that Mesa's VAAPI drivers will work too.

The disabling of hardware codecs in community distributions

Posted Oct 17, 2022 13:13 UTC (Mon) by amacater (subscriber, #790) [Link] (1 responses)

Drat it - one word too many left in. It should read with something of the sense given below:

That's the rationale for the split of Debian non-free into two parts - Debian non-free firmware as one part - and the *rest* of what is currently in Debian non-free as the other.

In the post of mine that this is a direct reply to, I left the word firmware on the end of the final sentence in error and made it a nonsense.
How come you never notice these things when re-reading the preview?

The disabling of hardware codecs in community distributions

Posted Oct 17, 2022 13:25 UTC (Mon) by Conan_Kudo (subscriber, #103240) [Link]

How come you never notice these things when re-reading the preview?

It's because you fill in everything in your head as you re-read and process it. You only notice once you have some distance, and by then it's too late.