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The bells and whistles of Ubuntu includes the firmware and drivers necessary for computers to work out of the box. In the past every time I tried out Debian on

The bells and whistles of Ubuntu includes the firmware and drivers necessary for computers to work out of the box. In the past every time I tried out Debian on my laptops, I ended up with hardware problems. Last time this happened, my Wifi wasn't working due to Debian not including the device's firmware. And there was no easy fix available, the only thing I could do was to recompile the kernel by myself. I then installed Ubuntu and it worked out of the box. Ubuntu is decent even on one of my MacBook Pro laptops I have, which is filled with components that need proprietary drivers. My younger self wouldn't believe what I'm about to say, but I can't deal with hardware problems or any of that crap anymore. Still if I were to now buy a non-Apple computer, it's Ubuntu that I'd install on it. On Google, they have people dealing with this shit, providing round the clock support and standardized hardware. That's not something that small companies can afford to do.

mnw21cam 9y ago
Often the required firmware is in the non-free section of Debian, which isn't enabled by default for idealism/purity reasons. It is very simple to enable installation of packages from the non-free section, and then usually everything just works. Basically, Ubuntu have chosen a different default - it probably doesn't actually have any firmware that Debian doesn't. Neither approach is wrong.
- smcl 9y ago
  Or if you are installing from a CD or USB image you can instead grab one of the "non-free" images which should have the necessary firmware and repositories setup and ready to use after initial install. I don't think it's very easy to find these directly from the website but in case anyone's interested here's the location: https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-including-firmware/ https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-in...
- jlgaddis 9y ago
  > It is very simple to enable installation of packages from the non-free section, and then usually everything just works. Not without a network connection, it doesn't. There are other ways (flash drive, etc.) to get the firmware onto the machine, of course, but I can understand bad_user's frustration.
  - mnw21cam 9y ago
    I see your pain and raise you a £1.75 USB/Ethernet adapter with free delivery [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ethernet-Network-Adapter-Converter-Connection/dp/B003Q85EEA https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ethernet-Network-Adapter-Converter-...]. But yes, you do raise a valid point.
  - ce4 9y ago
    A handy workaround is to use your mobile + usb tethering. Plug it in, then enable USB-tethering while logged into a wifi (data will go to the wifi not towards your mobile data plan then). The usb-ethernet driver works out of the box for almost all distros.
  - kakwa_ 9y ago
    Floppy disk ^^. I had to do it for an old Compaq Proliant DL 360 G1 (with no USB ports) back in 2012. It was for an old Intel NIC (e100 driver).
    - jlgaddis 9y ago
      If his laptop doesn't have a wired NIC, I'm guessing it probably doesn't have a floppy drive either. :-)
heeen 9y ago
Imagine my surprise when I pulled a headless debootstrap chroot upgrade of a squeeze debian box that did not come up after rebooting. I had to order a remote KMS session to figure out what went wrong: debian did not include the pretty common realtek-firmware and I was not able to apt-get it without a network interface. Luckily I was able to use it from a the previous installation.
- e12e 9y ago
  > headless debootstrap chroot upgrade What's a "debootstrap upgrade"? Why couldn't you chroots and dist upgrade? (i know what a debootstrap install is)
EliRivers 9y ago
My younger self wouldn't believe what I'm about to say, but I can't deal with hardware problems or any of that crap anymore Apropos of nothing much more than old people mumbling to each other about things, last week I bought a working, new PC (not peripherals or monitors), rather than assemble it myself from components bought separately from eBay for the first time in twenty years (well, 20 years ago I was using eSwap rather than eBay). Much the same as you; I'm just tired of putting it together and making sure to buy hardware that was all going to work together and then sorting out the drivers and all that sort of thing. So I went to a pick-your-parts-and-we-assemble site, and bought a shiny new system with a Z370 chipset and a shiny new CoffeeLake processor. The chap I spoke to couldn't guarantee it would run a Linux, but he said he'd install Ubuntu on it himself and check it ran, before doing the usual Win install on it and sending it out. No worries, thought I. I'll swiftly turn that into a dual-boot system (which itself turned out to be a pain; this secure boot stuff sure can be awkward). It turns out that Ubuntu 16.04 LTS doesn't come with a kernel recent enough to fully drive the Z370 and associated CPU inbuilt graphics, so I have to muck around getting hardware working anyway by bringing it forwards a few kernels, figure out how to add the relevent intel driver support to the kernel myself, buy a new graphics card and install it (no, I wanted to stop fiddling around with the hardware!)... or, as my older wiser self has decided, just keep using the old machine for graphically demanding Linux work and wait for 18.04 with kernel 4.15 It's been so long since I owned hardware made in the last six months that I'd completely forgotten about kernel support. I've been so happy for so many years that the kernel supports really old hardware, I forgot completely about the other end of the spectrum.

mnw21cam 9y ago

Often the required firmware is in the non-free section of Debian, which isn't enabled by default for idealism/purity reasons. It is very simple to enable installation of packages from the non-free section, and then usually everything just works. Basically, Ubuntu have chosen a different default - it probably doesn't actually have any firmware that Debian doesn't. Neither approach is wrong.

smcl 9y ago
Or if you are installing from a CD or USB image you can instead grab one of the "non-free" images which should have the necessary firmware and repositories setup and ready to use after initial install. I don't think it's very easy to find these directly from the website but in case anyone's interested here's the location: https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-including-firmware/ https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-in...
jlgaddis 9y ago
> It is very simple to enable installation of packages from the non-free section, and then usually everything just works. Not without a network connection, it doesn't. There are other ways (flash drive, etc.) to get the firmware onto the machine, of course, but I can understand bad_user's frustration.
- mnw21cam 9y ago
  I see your pain and raise you a £1.75 USB/Ethernet adapter with free delivery [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ethernet-Network-Adapter-Converter-Connection/dp/B003Q85EEA https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ethernet-Network-Adapter-Converter-...]. But yes, you do raise a valid point.
- ce4 9y ago
  A handy workaround is to use your mobile + usb tethering. Plug it in, then enable USB-tethering while logged into a wifi (data will go to the wifi not towards your mobile data plan then). The usb-ethernet driver works out of the box for almost all distros.
- kakwa_ 9y ago
  Floppy disk ^^. I had to do it for an old Compaq Proliant DL 360 G1 (with no USB ports) back in 2012. It was for an old Intel NIC (e100 driver).
  - jlgaddis 9y ago
    If his laptop doesn't have a wired NIC, I'm guessing it probably doesn't have a floppy drive either. :-)

heeen 9y ago

Imagine my surprise when I pulled a headless debootstrap chroot upgrade of a squeeze debian box that did not come up after rebooting. I had to order a remote KMS session to figure out what went wrong: debian did not include the pretty common realtek-firmware and I was not able to apt-get it without a network interface. Luckily I was able to use it from a the previous installation.

e12e 9y ago
> headless debootstrap chroot upgrade What's a "debootstrap upgrade"? Why couldn't you chroots and dist upgrade? (i know what a debootstrap install is)

EliRivers 9y ago

My younger self wouldn't believe what I'm about to say, but I can't deal with hardware problems or any of that crap anymore Apropos of nothing much more than old people mumbling to each other about things, last week I bought a working, new PC (not peripherals or monitors), rather than assemble it myself from components bought separately from eBay for the first time in twenty years (well, 20 years ago I was using eSwap rather than eBay). Much the same as you; I'm just tired of putting it together and making sure to buy hardware that was all going to work together and then sorting out the drivers and all that sort of thing. So I went to a pick-your-parts-and-we-assemble site, and bought a shiny new system with a Z370 chipset and a shiny new CoffeeLake processor. The chap I spoke to couldn't guarantee it would run a Linux, but he said he'd install Ubuntu on it himself and check it ran, before doing the usual Win install on it and sending it out. No worries, thought I. I'll swiftly turn that into a dual-boot system (which itself turned out to be a pain; this secure boot stuff sure can be awkward). It turns out that Ubuntu 16.04 LTS doesn't come with a kernel recent enough to fully drive the Z370 and associated CPU inbuilt graphics, so I have to muck around getting hardware working anyway by bringing it forwards a few kernels, figure out how to add the relevent intel driver support to the kernel myself, buy a new graphics card and install it (no, I wanted to stop fiddling around with the hardware!)... or, as my older wiser self has decided, just keep using the old machine for graphically demanding Linux work and wait for 18.04 with kernel 4.15 It's been so long since I owned hardware made in the last six months that I'd completely forgotten about kernel support. I've been so happy for so many years that the kernel supports really old hardware, I forgot completely about the other end of the spectrum.