On Sunday, January 17, 2021 6:06:15 AM EST Bjørn Mork wrote: > All these USB devices work only because they come with firmware on a largish > flash. That's not the complete case. Of the modern libre USB WiFi dongles I know of, carl9170 (firmware for AR9170 chips) is included in firmware-linux-free and should be in the installer. These devices are a little older, but support 802.11n and even dual-band 2.4GHz/5GHz connectivity for some.
The newer flagship chips for USB wireless dongles, ath9k_htc (AR7010/AR9271), have libre firmware released by Qualcomm Atheros upon request of ThinkPenguin, their employees, and other interested parties. This firmware isn't included in the installer or installed by default with firmware-linux-free yet, but is provided by the firmware-ath9k-htc package I maintain. A takeaway from Theo de Raadt and the OpenBSD Project's successes on wireless devices is that it doesn't hurt to ask. IMHO, a message in the Debian Installer should be clear to place blame on the device manufacturers, something I don't think the current message about nonfree firmware emphasizes,
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