Debian non-free-firmware policy making OS misleading and Free Software unfriendly
Debian's policy change on non-free-firmware has made much of the Debian.org website very misleading, and some Debian OS installers have become very Free Software UNfriendly and deceptive. The following is my experience, and the reasons why I believe Debian must re-word their promotional web pages, and update all their installers to respect user choice regarding installation of non-free-firmware or not:
I'm a 10+ year Debian user, and a longtime Free Software supporter. Two weeks ago I was shocked to discover 29 non-free components in the Debian desktop I'd been using for the last couple months. There hadn't been any opt-in or even a notice about Debian's major policy change during the installation process (I use the Debian installer via the Live images), so I was completely unaware.
In my initial attempts to figure out what was going on, I also didn't find any prominent announcement of the major policy change on Debian.org's homepage. Moreover, the "Our Philosophy" and "Why Debian" homepage links still give the impression that Debian is Free-Software-Friendly. That's extremely misleading now (automatically installing 29 non-free components with neither permission nor warning is not Free Software friendly).
If Debian is going to continue promoting itself with those "Our Philosophy" and "Why Debian" pages, there should at least be opt-ins during the installation process of every Debian download, as well as prominent warnings of the new policy on the download pages. Until that's done, the "Our Philosophy" and "Why Debian" pages (and perhaps others) should be re-worded so as to not be so misleading.
I was disappointed to eventually read of Debian's "vote" on non-free-firmware. Though I do understand the desire to make Debian more friendly to new users, doing so by misleading and alienating many existing users doesn't make a lot of sense IMO:
After reading of this change, I then spent the next week trying to figure out how to re-install Debian without the non-free firmware. That's when I discovered that Debian has suddenly become very Free-Software-UNfriendly. Even when I used the "firmware=never" method on the Debian installer (Live image dvd), the 29 non-free components were still installed! Without warning. That "firmware=never" method is what Debian.org itself is recommending (on a rather deep link sadly), but it doesn't even work!
So I eventually abandoned that longtime favorite method of installing my preferred desktop, and switched to the NON-Live DVD installation... But then discovered that using "firmware=never" method there also blocks FREE-firmware that used to get installed. So now my Wifi adapter didn't work, whereas it always worked with Debian 11/Bullseye and earlier installations.
Ultimately it took me about a week, and about a dozen Debian Bookworm re-installations, and even hiring a developer, to get an installation via DVD that was similar to what was previously installed by default. I've provided some tips below to others who are struggling. However, Debian needs to change all it's installers to provide "opt-in" for anything non-free. Even if that "opt-in" is checked by default, it should be easy to opt-out. Debian's current leadership may have lost sight of their own "Why Debian" and "Our Philosophy" and "Who we are and what we do" claims, but Free Software philosophy is still important to many people. Actually, it's still important, period. But whether the current leader/"voters" agree or understand or not, there should be choice for users.
Until the installers are updated, the Debian.org homepage and "Why Debian" and "Our Philosophy" and download pages should all be changed. Keeping them as they are is worse than misleading IMO (false advertising? bait-and-switch? negligent?). While an attorney could be consulted, why not just be responsible, and honest, and inclusive, by adding simple opt-in/out options on all Debian's installers?
Until the Debian installers are fixed, hopefully the tips below help some Free Software supporters who wish to continue using Debian. Note that I'm not a developer, so there may be mistakes in these instructions. If you find any mistakes, or have suggestions for improvement on these instructions, please post your suggestions in a reply:
1) Above all, avoid Debian 12 Bookworm's "Live image" installations. Those will install non-free firmware on your system no matter what you do. Even when I followed Debian.org's instructions for adding "firmware=never" before installing the OS, I still ended up with 29 non-free components on my system. That's exactly the same number as without "firmware=never", which means this method of blocking non-free-firmware doesn't work with Debian's live images. Therefore, avoid Debian Bookworm's live images completely.
2) If you're a technical person and want to support Free Software, you could install from Debian 12's "NON-Live" DVD. Adding "firmware=never" before installing with that DVD will block non-free-firmware (How to do that: on the DVD's opening "Boot Menu", scroll to "Start Installer" or "Graphical Install", hit Tab, and enter "firmware=never" to that line. I'm not sure if position matters, but I added it just before the "---" and that worked). UNFORTUNATELY, this method also blocks some FREE-firmware that Debian 11/Bulleye's Live image would have installed. Because of that, my WiFi adapter didn't work after installing Debian 12/Bookworm using this method, whereas my Wifi always worked immediately after installing Debian 11 with purely free firmware.
3) If you're a non-technical (casual) Debian user who wishes to support Free Software, you could revert to Debian 11's "Live DVD". While Debian 11's Live image DVD may also ignore "firmware=never", Debian 11 doesn't include non-free-firmware in the first place, so it doesn't matter that "firmware=never" get ignored. On the other hand, what was great about Debian 11's Live DVD installer is that it always recognized what free firmware my WiFi adapter needed, and installed it automatically. Therefore, my WiFi adapter (and everything else on my system) works immediately after installing Debian 11 with its 100% free firmware. That's longer the case with Debian 12/Bookworm.
4) Advanced: If you want a Debian DVD that installs the free-firmware, but not the non-free-firmware (ie. a Debian 12 DVD that installs the way Debian 11 did): You can use the program ISOMaster (FOSS in "main" Debian repository) to remove the folders /dists/bookwork/non-free-firmware/, /dists/bookwork/contrib/, /pool/non-free-firmware/, /pool/contrib/, as well as everything non-free in /firmware/. Unfortunately, that's a rather time consuming and tedious process. It would be easy for Debian to provide such an image for everyone, but it's challenging for casual Free Software supporters to perform individually. Also, this only works on Debian's non-Live images. To remove non-free-components from the the Live images, I believe would require modifying the squashfs file, which was beyond my abilities. Perhaps someone could post how to do that?
As a casual Debian user, it took me a week to figure this all out. The conclusion is that Debian 12/Bookworm is much, much less friendly for Free Software supporters than Debian 11/Bullseye was. The stuff about "Our Philosophy" and "Why Debian" and "Who We Are" on the Debian.org homepage is now very misleading IMO. There's not even a warning during Debian Bookworm's live image installation to warn people about this major change to Debian! Even worse, the hard-to-find instructions being provided by Debian.org for how to block non-free-firmware don't even work for the Live image installs. In either case (whether a user is aware of Debian's policy change and "firmware=never" instructions, or not), people who think they're avoiding non-free-firmware are actually getting non-free-firmware.
While I'm glad to have discovered workarounds to continue using Debian while also supporting Free Software, it was challenging, and I'm very disappointed to see how unimportant Free Software principles (on which Debian was built) are to Debian's current leadership. Supporting Free Software shouldn't require being a developer, nor hiring a developer, but Debian 12 took me a week to figure out. Debian 11 and previous releases were always super easy.
Again, it really doesn't make sense to try to make Debian accessible to more users by taking away what made it appealing to many of its existing users. That's trying to make Debian more popular by taking away what makes it special. It wouldn't be hard for Debian leadership to provide more Free-Software-Friendly installers. Individual users shouldn't have to go through what I went through (a week!).
I really hope something changes. In the meantime, I'm personally reverting to Debian 11 since it still has a few years of support. I am aware of PureOS, but the Debian community is still so great, and with 10+ years of Debian-devotion/love at this point, I'll stick with the workarounds for as long as I can.
By the way, for anyone who values Free Software principles, going forward it seems like a good idea to always check your Debian installations for non-free components immediately after installation. To do that:
a) as root, update your /etc/apt/sources.list and remove any non-free or contrib entries.
b) do: sudo apt-get update
c) install the FOSS application "apt-show-versions" by doing: apt-get install apt-show-versions
d) do this command: sudo apt-show-versions | grep "No available version in archive"
If nothing is listed, you're good. If something is listed, those are non-free, which means something wasn't done correctly during your installation. Some people may suggest just uninstalling those non-free components, but because those components are closed-source (aka. non-free(dom)), there's no way to know for sure what they've already done in your system now that you've booted up. Therefore, if anything is listed, my opinion is that it's best to re-install Debian.
Ironically, Debian 12 was the first time I ever experienced instability on Debian (my Wifi was breaking every couple hours). I have no way of knowing if it was the non-free-firmware causing a conflict, but my guess is yes because there was a conflicting non-free-firmware package. And now that I'm back to Debian 11, all is stable again.
Links referenced:
• Debian 12 Live install images to AVOID: https://www.debian.org/CD/live/
• Better option for Debian 12, where "firmware=never" works, and where you'll still be able to select your preferred desktop, but you may need to manually add free firmware after installation, which is annoying: https://www.debian.org/CD/
• Best option as of April 2024 in my opinion is to revert to Debian 11's Live install images: https://cdimage.debian.org/mirror/cdimage/archive/11.9.0-live/
• Instructions being provided by Debian.org (see section 2.2) that don't work with Live images, which is very misleading IMO: https://www.debian.org/releases/bookworm/amd64/
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