Bonum Certa Men Certa

IBM's (Red Hat's) LVFS in Action on Non-IBM Systems

Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer.

LVFS



You May Get “Failed to load signature: Need more input” Error on Debian 12 and Other Distributions With LVFS.



This problem occurs due to a signature mismatch issue with the “Linux Vendor Firmware Service” repository.



In most cases, you can fix this error by disabling LVFS repositories in Plasma Discover (KDE) or Software Center (GNOME).



On my Lenovo laptops, the only thing hosted there are Microsoft dbx updates for “Security Theater Boot”, and those updates blacklist things that Microsoft doesn’t want the computer to boot.



Since I have this silly “Secure Boot” thing turned off, as it adds no real security, I also disable LVFS. But it seems I forgot to on Debian.



Well, problem solved. No more vague “Need Input!” error from Discover. The error is so bad and vague you don’t even know what’s causing it. I had to paste it into a search engine to end up with this.



What is LVFS and why should I turn it off?



LVFS is essentially, a stash of binary blobs that can change (or corrupt) your PC hardware in subtle ways. It is a back door. You can’t know what they will do.



It’s not even a repository controlled by your Linux distribution, certainly not by Debian.



The stash of blobs is an IBM project, but all kinds of hardware vendors can stuff blobs here to change your computer without asking.



It is a security issue to leave this thing activated and you should turn it off. Shame on Debian for even going along with it.

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