Re: why doesn't d-i include firmware-b43-installer and firmware-b43legacy-installer?

[Holger Wansing <hwansing@mailbox.org>]

Hi,

Tomas Pospisek <tpo@sourcepole.ch> wrote (Wed, 14 Apr 2021 09:13:20 +0200 (CEST)):
> In #740499 Chris Bainbridge writes that:
> 
> > [...] but firmware-7.4.0-amd64-netinst.iso does not contain
> > Broadcom firmware (at least not b43).
> 
> I can see that there are firmware packages for Broadcom b43 in contrib:
> 
> https://packages.debian.org/search?suite=bullseye&section=all&arch=any&searchon=names&keywords=firmware-b
> 
> Could anybody in the known comment why those firmware packages are not 
> included in the non-free installer images? Is there anything preventing 
> their inclusion? Or asked in a different way: could they be included so 
> the Debian installer supports the users with that hardware?

As the name says, this packages do not contain the firmware itself, but only
a firmware-installer tool.
To get the firmware, you need to run this tool, and the firmware gets loaded
via some internet source.

Because of this behaviour, the installer cannot do this automatically, so the
user needs to do this anyway by hand.
And he needs to have internet access for this, to get the firmware.

So it's pointless, if these packages are included in the image or not.

Thus closing this bug


Holger


-- 
Holger Wansing <hwansing@mailbox.org>
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