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Bug#1029848: hw-detect: decide how to configure firmware support



Control: tag -1 patch pending

Cyril Brulebois <kibi@debian.org> (2023-01-29):
> If we really want not to use a bare /firmware, maybe /firmware-lookup?
> But having something specialized in hw-detect and something much more
> generic in preseed would look strange to me. I don't really mind either
> way.

This seems to work fine:
 - https://salsa.debian.org/installer-team/hw-detect/-/commits/non-free-firmware
 - https://salsa.debian.org/installer-team/preseed/-/commits/non-free-firmware

Test environments:

 - VM with a Realtek Wi-Fi USB dongle shared from the host, which
   requests firmware even if it doesn't *need* it at least for basic
   operations (incl. WPA2); installed by sharing the netinst image
   as a CD-ROM.
    + tested with default boot parameters
    + tested with firmware=never

 - Dell G3 15 pulling many firmware packages (iwlwifi, linux-free,
   misc-nonfree, realtek, sof-signed); installed using the netinst
   image deployed on a USB stick. [That's the one where iwlwifi also
   wants iwl-debug-yoyo.bin, which was blocklisted for bullseye, and
   that still works.]
    + tested with default boot parameters
    + tested with hw-detect/firmware-lookup=never

With “never”, since the firmware isn't really needed in the first case,
I had to pick one interface of the wired/wireless ones, like when using
default boot parameters; in the second case, the wired interface was
picked up automatically.

In both cases, the resulting sources.list correctly lists only main,
despite the netinst image's having local, main, non-free, and
non-free-firmware. firmware-linux-free is installed in both cases
(it's recommended by linux-image-$ABI).


If someone fancies different names, the time is now! Meeting with Steve
coming up in a few hours, I'll upload shortly after.


Cheers,
-- 
Cyril Brulebois (kibi@debian.org)            <https://debamax.com/>
D-I release manager -- Release team member -- Freelance Consultant

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