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by daptaq 1349 days ago
So this is only for the installer, right? The software that is not needed for basic functionality will not be installed permanently, right?

Also, if there are two driver implementations, as is often the case for GPUs, which will be preferred?
2 comments
dsr_ 1349 days ago
It's for firmware for network devices, especially wifi.

An annoying number of Debian installs fail on laptops because the wifi needs firmware and people expect it to work. You can choose to enable non-free after install, but the installer doesn't have that as a direct option.

Prior to this, an alternative installer was available that had the firmware in it... but it was not well-publicized, and was not the default or even available from the same page as the default.

If you install with non-free firmware, it will continue to be installed afterwards.

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zozbot234 1349 days ago
Some graphics and sound hardware also requires firmware these days, and working sound is important for accessibility.
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yakubin 1349 days ago
> So this is only for the installer, right?

According to the Debian wiki description of this option[1]: "Where non-free firmware is found to be necessary, the target system will also be configured to use the non-free-firmware component by default in the apt sources.list file."

> The software that is not needed for basic functionality will not be installed permanently, right?

I'm not sure I understand you right. Unless the software is needed, the installer won't load it. And I'm not sure what you mean by "basic functionality" here, but the way I read the Debian pages it's about loading everything needed for the hardware to be fully-operational (or as close to it as is possible).

[1]: <https://www.debian.org/vote/2022/vote_003#texte>

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