TechBytes Episode 86: Debian GNU/Linux and Firmware

Dr. Roy Schestowitz

2013-07-24 10:06:40 UTC
Modified: 2013-07-24 10:07:30 UTC

Richard Stallman in nature
Direct download as Ogg (00:06:42, 3.5 MB)

Summary: Richard Stallman's suggestion for people who want to compromise on the issue of firmware

THE latest Debian GNU/Linux, like the previous version (6.x), comes without notorious firmware by default, which causes inconvenience to some, yours truly included. I discussed this with Stallman and here are his views on the matter. ⬆

As embedded (HTML5):

Keywords: gnu fsf richardstallman

Download:

Gemini Links 28/10/2026: BaseFree Numerical System, Tolino Vision 2, and More: Links for the day
Intercontinental Brigading - Part XVIII - Microsoft is Not the Victim (It Was Never the Victim), It's Just DARVO: "DARVO is now in the dictionary. That’s a win for abuse survivors"
Intercontinental Brigading - Part XVII - The Relevance of Silent Layoffs at Microsoft: "Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act: strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs)"
The Cyber Show on Plagiarism (BS Artists) and Fear of GNU/Linux Users: Take a look at these articles
"EVENTS" as Paid Spam (Marketing) at The Register MS: Now that layoffs are "buyouts" and debt is "credit" (or "investment" in slop) why not call spam "event"?
Just Jealous: LLMs vs Developers
The Need for Operating System Kernels That Forbid LLM Slop: Not even OpenBSD is an alternative to Linux slop
Links 27/10/2026: "Why My Dad Didn’t Have a Cell Phone" and Sudan Famine Risk: Links for the day
Links 27/10/2026: Google Increases Spying on Online Everything (Personal Files, Mail), Anthropic Takes Its Losses and Debt Public: Links for the day
The British Economy Too Dependent on an American Slop Scheme: United States Government debt will soon eclipse 40.5 trillion dollars
We've Already Begun Work on the 20th Year of Techrights: We'll do a yearlong endeavour of improvement instead of a one-day hurrah
Volunteers or Unpaid Developers Won't Bother Interacting With Mindless LLMs That Pass Labour From Lazy Companies to Human Beings: The people who run Debian are killing the will to do Free software
Slop is Killing the Open Web: The Web is a jungle and "open sites" (without restrictions or walls) are exposed to the 'feeding frenzy' of reckless plagiarists who call their "theft" something like "super intelligence" or "training"
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 26, 2026: IRC logs for Monday, October 26, 2026
As Microsoft Tells Close to 30% of Its Staff to Leave IBM Takes Notes: IBM does the same with PIPs
It's Perfectly Possible That Microsoft Has Just Told Most of Its American Workers to Leave: A better news headline might focus on the US and give a figure like 50%, not "quarter"
Richard Stallman Was Right About "Hey Hi": Now the chicken come home to roost
Gemini Links 27/10/2026: "To Change or Not To Change?" and "Initial Planner Plans": Links for the day
Intercontinental Brigading - Part XVI - The Faustian Pact That Irritates Hired Guns is Still a Distraction From the Serious Harm Done by Their Clients to GNU/Linux Users (Notably Plagiarism and Back Doors): We'd rather talk about the harms caused
Links 26/10/2026: Microsoft Chaffbot "Building Detailed Psychological Profiles of Its Users", Man Executed for Childhood Offenses: Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/10/2026: Writing Down Dreams and "Sabbath as Resistance": Links for the day
The Register MS Gets Rid of Disclosures About Paid-for Spam Regarding "AI", It Also Composes Fake News for the Sponsors: Selling away its credibility is known as "Sellout"
Microsoft 'Buyouts' Sound Just Like 60,000 Layoffs of 'Expensive' or More Experienced Staff ('Soft' Layoffs or Even Worse, Negligible Severance): This is not a "gift" to staff, it's just a pink slip with a hundred dollar bill attached to it
This is How Microsoft Ends (Over a Quarter of the Company Now on the Chopping Block): Microsoft has quit pretending
Search Without Encryption for Legacy Systems (Permacomputing) and Full Backward Compatibility: At your own risk
Shift to the Lula (Left): Lula is a friend of Free software and ODF
More Stories and Material Than We Can Publish: We're gaining or have amassed material faster than we manage to publish
European Patent Office Takes From the Poor to Give More to the Rich: The "pension schemes are overfunded at 120.5%"
Intercontinental Brigading - Part XV - Annualised Consequences for Opposing Microsoft Back Doors in Linux Since 2012: a roundup of what we got from GGG
Links 26/10/2026: China’s Communist Party Plenum and Aleksandar Vucic Concedes Defeat: Links for the day
In Reporting, Timing is Everything: If you keep calling people "paedophiles" when you yourself are connected to paedophiles (or are a paedophile), you're attracting a lot of unwanted attention to yourself
Links 25/10/2026: Microsoft Layoffs and Cuts, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva Wins Election: Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/10/2026: Brazilian Politics and Leaving Bear Blog: Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 25, 2026: IRC logs for Sunday, October 25, 2026
Another Form of Microsoft Silent Layoffs: Workers That 'Expire': When the media becomes a lapdog, not a watchdog, false narratives gain traction
Carte Blanche for GPL Violations 4 Days Ago (by Torvalds): Slop disclosure is no longer required for the Linux Kernel
There Are No Women That Are Kernel Developers Sent by Corporations Which Claim to Champion Diversity: As noted the other day
Sites with "Linux" in Their Name Cannot Slop and Retain Readers: if they write about "linux "(or "Linux") using LLMs they will be caught, then shunned
At Microsoft, the Silent Layoffs Impact Executives Also: Microsoft hid the real story of Helen Chiang
Linus Torvalds Defected to Enshittification: Linus Torvalds is betraying a generation of high(er) standards
Links 25/10/2026: TMZ Revisits Epstein's Connections to Bill Epsteingate, "Italy Hit by New Cost of Living Protests": Links for the day
Microsoft’s Spin About Mass Layoffs and Shutdowns: They "Never Should Have Existed": Microsoft-sponsored spin
It's Slop: Maybe we'll exclude It's Slop from our curation. It's a Linux Foundation outpost of sorts, an apologist of sloppy code and plagiarism.
Intercontinental Brigading - Part XIV - Six Years of Learning Irish, But the Real Issue Was Microsoft-controlled 'Secure' (Restricted) Boot: Had I not opposed back doors in Linux, not of this would come about
Gemini Links 25/10/2026: Moana (2026) and OpenBSD Updates: Links for the day
The Netherlands Fast to Adopt GNU/Linux, "Market Share" Rises to Two-Digit Value (on Desktops/Laptops): It peaked at around 20% yesterday
DST Still Needs to Get Abolished: Get rid of DST, efficiency will improve and systems will become more reliable
PHP2Shell as Paid-for FUD Campaign (Intended to Help Sell Slop and Fake "Market Value" of Slop Pushers): PHP2Shell considered overhyped [...] Remember all the paid-for hype regarding Mythos? What happened to all that?
Microsoft Sort of Tried to Sell XBox Piecewise (Offloading Microsoft): XBox is in a morbid state
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, October 24, 2026: IRC logs for Saturday, October 24, 2026

TechBytes Episode 86: Debian GNU/Linux and Firmware

Recent Techrights' Posts