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Ubuntu Devs Debate Splitting Linux Firmware to Reduce Size
Quoting: Ubuntu Devs Debate Splitting Linux Firmware to Reduce Size - OMG! Ubuntu —
This singular unified firmware package bundles together drivers and microcode for all kinds of hardware devices, from from wi-fi cards and dongles to graphics cards to storage controllers for NVMes and SSDs.
If you’ve ever looked at the Software Updater and seen it needs to pull in 800MB of updates for the second time in a month, chances are the Linux Firmware package has seen an update (however minor the change, it downloads the entire package).
A lot of the firmware blobs bundled inside this critical kernel package are useful. No doubt about that. Not everyone needs everything it contains, though get “all the firmware” anyway. For instance, you probably aren’t using a RISC-V system, but you get RISC-V firmware.