new archive section: non-free-firmware

[Sven Joachim]

Some news for you who are running unstable or testing/bookworm and have
firmware packages installed from non-free (most users who do not run
Debian in a VM probably have): these firmware packages are being moved
to a new section non-free-firmware, and you should update your
sources.list(5) entries to include that section to keep them up to date.

In unstable this is already happening, and aptitude just informed me
that two installed firmware-* packages have become obsolete, i.e. are no
longer available from non-free. In bookworm, non-free-firmware is
currently still empty, but that will change in the coming days and weeks.

To use the new section, edit sources.list like this:

before:
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ unstable main contrib non-free

after:
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ unstable main contrib non-free non-free-firmware

and similar for testing or bookworm instead of unstable.

If you have aptitude installed[1], the following command gives you a
list of installed packages from non-free:

$ aptitude search -F %p --disable-columns '~i~snon-free

If that list only includes packages matching "firmware", you can remove
non-free from your sources.list once the transition of firmware packages
to the new section is complete.

For more information why this was done, read
https://www.debian.org/vote/2022/vote_003.

Cheers,
Sven


1. If somebody knows a similar command in apt, please post it.

[Charles Curley]

On Sat, 28 Jan 2023 18:09:27 +0100
Sven Joachim <sven...@gmx.de> wrote:

> To use the new section, edit sources.list like this:
>
> before:
> deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ unstable main contrib non-free
>
> after:
> deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ unstable main contrib non-free
> non-free-firmware

Will the Debian Installer make this change? And under what
circumstances will it do so?

--
Does anybody read signatures any more?

https://charlescurley.com
https://charlescurley.com/blog/

[Andrew M.A. Cater]

On Sat, Jan 28, 2023 at 11:47:21AM -0700, Charles Curley wrote:
> On Sat, 28 Jan 2023 18:09:27 +0100
> Sven Joachim <sven...@gmx.de> wrote:
>
> > To use the new section, edit sources.list like this:
> >
> > before:
> > deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ unstable main contrib non-free
> >
> > after:
> > deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ unstable main contrib non-free
> > non-free-firmware
>
> Will the Debian Installer make this change? And under what
> circumstances will it do so?
>

Hi Charles,

This all follows on the General Resolution a while ago. If you are making a
wholly new install, I suspect that the change will be made for you if the
need for non-free firmware is detected AND the non-free firmware is installed
as part of the building process AND you opt to keep the non-free firmware
installed that the installer installed as part of the bootstrap process.

Bearing in mind that the IRC channels #debian-boot and #debian-cd are
both showing significant activity at the moment as you might expect.

We may well need for an Alpha-2, a beta or an RC for Bookworm to be sure.

If you dist-upgrade from bullseye, I suspect it's down to you to check
that the sources lines are correct which is not unusual.

Very happy indeed to be proved wrong if we can automate more in due course :)

All the very best, as ever,

Andy Cater

[Charles Curley]

On Sat, 28 Jan 2023 19:05:39 +0000
"Andrew M.A. Cater" <amac...@einval.com> wrote:

> This all follows on the General Resolution a while ago.

Right. I looked at the page to which Sven Joachim <sven...@gmx.de>
referred. https://www.debian.org/vote/2022/vote_003 Some of the
proposals explicitly required the installer to do so. However, I am not
familiar enough with Debian processes to determine which language was
approved, so I could not determine the answer to my question.

> If you are making a wholly new install, I suspect that the change
> will be made for you if the need for non-free firmware is detected
> AND the non-free firmware is installed as part of the building
> process AND you opt to keep the non-free firmware installed that the
> installer installed as part of the bootstrap process.

That sounds like a good way to go.

>
> Bearing in mind that the IRC channels #debian-boot and #debian-cd are
> both showing significant activity at the moment as you might expect.

Ah, then I shall await their decision.

> If you dist-upgrade from bullseye, I suspect it's down to you to check
> that the sources lines are correct which is not unusual.

As I would expect. I would hesitate to automate that, even for my few
machines. I will, however, make a note where I will find it when the
time comes.

>
> Very happy indeed to be proved wrong if we can automate more in due
> course :)

:-)

Thank you for that clarification.

[Sven Joachim]

On 2023-01-28 13:11 -0700, Charles Curley wrote:

> On Sat, 28 Jan 2023 19:05:39 +0000
> "Andrew M.A. Cater" <amac...@einval.com> wrote:
>
>> This all follows on the General Resolution a while ago.
>
> Right. I looked at the page to which Sven Joachim <sven...@gmx.de>
> referred. https://www.debian.org/vote/2022/vote_003 Some of the
> proposals explicitly required the installer to do so. However, I am not
> familiar enough with Debian processes to determine which language was
> approved, so I could not determine the answer to my question.

Sorry, that was my fault. I should have given the link to outcome of
the vote as well, it was Option 5 "Change SC for non-free firmware in
installer, one installer"[1].

Cheers,
Sven


1. https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2022/10/msg00001.html

[Charles Curley]

On Sat, 28 Jan 2023 21:19:55 +0100
Sven Joachim <sven...@gmx.de> wrote:

> Sorry, that was my fault. I should have given the link to outcome of
> the vote as well, it was Option 5 "Change SC for non-free firmware in
> installer, one installer"[1].

Thank you. My question is answered.