Will free kernel mean firmware problems in Live in persistent mode?

[Shankar Gopalakrishnan <sg.backuponly@gmail.com>]

Dear all,

I've been running Debian Live in persistent mode on a flash drive as my workhorse, everyday system for more than a year now, and I first want to start off by thanking everyone for the wonderful, incredible work that it is.  I also particularly find the CGI builder on the website extremely useful - I use it to build images with the packages that I need (saving space on my very space constrained 4G drive) and then use those in persistent mode, booting on various machines in the places I travel for my work.

I just had a question regarding the new "all-free" kernel announced for Squeeze and upwards.  Is this the kernel that will be used for Debian Live?  If so, might there be problems in booting the live system on some machines. In that case, will it be possible to get a Live image, from the website, that has a kernel with all the firmware included?  Or can one download the firmware separately and store it on the system in a way that the Live image would load it when booting?

Thanks a lot in advance, and also again for all the hard work,

Shankar