> > > Is firmware not connected to the hardware? > > Modern hardware (wifi adapter for example) is a tiny computer. Firmware is a special program that runs in it (much like you run Debian on your PC). Hardware vendors provide firmware as blob: compiled piece of data without source (like Windows)) so firmware is not open source. The problem is hardware can't work without firmware, so you still need to download it and install it inside of hardware. Since Debian is an open source OS, it doesn't provide closed-source firmwares by default, and many wifi adapters simply do not work. To fix that, user must explicitly add "non-free" repository to the list of apr repositories in Debian (you can do that during installation or later by editing sources.list) and then install firmware package. Debian loads it into hardware and it works after that.
Many people believe that everything (including firmware) must be opensourced, but we can't force hardware vendors to do that. https://wiki.debian.org/Firmware <https://wiki.debian.org/Firmware> There is also a chicken-and-egg problem: you can't access the Internet to download firmware if your wifi doesn't work. To solve it, one may use special (unofficial) Debian installer https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-including-firmware/ ------------------------------ > *Von:* Celejar <cele...@gmail.com> > *Gesendet:* Dienstag, 26. April 2022 14:46 > *An:* debian-user@lists.debian.org <debian-user@lists.debian.org> > *Betreff:* Re: AW: AW: AW: Here Newbie---Amateur in Linux...Problem: > Debian LXDE cannot boot.. Is it destroyed?//Second try Hotmail bug Sorry > > On Tue, 26 Apr 2022 09:32:23 -0400 > Greg Wooledge <g...@wooledge.org> wrote: > > ... > > > Firmware is executable code that runs inside of a device (such as a > > network interface) rather than in your CPU. > > > > Many modern devices require some non-free firmware in order to perform > > their duties correctly. This is *especially* the case with wireless > > network interfaces, but also applies to video chipsets and other things. > > > > If your devices are old enough, you may not need any. If your devices > > are newer, you probably need some. > > Just FTR, some rather old wired ethernet adaptors, such as the Broadcom > NetXtreme II (BCM5716) in my Dell R210 II, also require non-free > firmware to function: > > https://packages.debian.org/buster/firmware-bnx2 > > -- > Celejar > >
