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<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd"> <html> <head> <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=Edge"> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> <link rel="shortcut icon" href="/htdocs/favicon.ico"> <script type="text/javascript" src="/htdocs/bugstatus.js"></script> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8"> <meta name="robots" content="index,nofollow"> <title>Firmware - Debian Wiki</title> <script type="text/javascript" src="/htdocs/common/js/common.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript">  </script> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" charset="utf-8" media="all" href="/htdocs/debwiki/css/common.css"> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" charset="utf-8" media="screen" href="/htdocs/debwiki/css/screen.css"> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" charset="utf-8" media="print" href="/htdocs/debwiki/css/print.css"> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" charset="utf-8" media="projection" href="/htdocs/debwiki/css/projection.css"> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" charset="utf-8" media="all" href="/htdocs/debian-wiki-1.0.css">   <link rel="alternate" title="Debian Wiki: Firmware" href="/Firmware?diffs=1&show_att=1&action=rss_rc&unique=0&page=Firmware&ddiffs=1" type="application/rss+xml"> <link rel="Start" href="/FrontPage"> <link rel="Alternate" title="Wiki Markup" href="/Firmware?action=raw"> <link rel="Alternate" media="print" title="Print View" href="/Firmware?action=print"> <link rel="Search" href="/FindPage"> <link rel="Index" href="/TitleIndex"> <link rel="Glossary" href="/WordIndex"> <link rel="Help" href="/HelpOnFormatting"> </head> <body lang="en" dir="ltr"> <div id="logo"><a href="https://www.debian.org" title="Debian Homepage"><img src="https://www.debian.org/Pics/openlogo-50.png" alt="Debian" width="50" height="61"></a></div> <div id="header"> <div id="wikisection"> <a href="/FrontPage" title="Debian Wiki Homepage">Wiki</a> <div id="username"><a href="/Firmware?action=login" id="login" rel="nofollow">Login</a></div> </div> <div id="navbar"> <ul id="navibar"> <li class="wikilink"><a href="/FrontPage">FrontPage</a></li><li class="wikilink"><a href="/RecentChanges">RecentChanges</a></li><li class="wikilink"><a href="/FindPage">FindPage</a></li><li class="wikilink"><a href="/HelpContents">HelpContents</a></li><li class="current"><a href="/Firmware">Firmware</a></li> </ul> </div> <form id="searchform" method="get" action="/Firmware"> <div> <input type="hidden" name="action" value="fullsearch"> <input type="hidden" name="context" value="180"> <label for="searchinput">Search:</label> <input id="searchinput" type="text" name="value" value="" size="20" onfocus="searchFocus(this)" onblur="searchBlur(this)" onkeyup="searchChange(this)" onchange="searchChange(this)" alt="Search"> <input id="titlesearch" name="titlesearch" type="submit" value="Titles" alt="Search Titles"> <input id="fullsearch" name="fullsearch" type="submit" value="Text" alt="Search Full Text"> </div> </form> <script type="text/javascript">  </script> <div id="logo"><a href="https://www.debian.org" title="Debian Homepage"><img src="https://www.debian.org/Pics/openlogo-50.png" alt="Debian" width="50" height="61"></a></div> <div id="breadcrumbs"><a href="/FrontPage" title="Debian Wiki Homepage">Wiki</a>/ </div> <ul class="editbar"><li><a href="/Firmware?action=login" id="login-1" rel="nofollow">Login</a></li><li class="toggleCommentsButton" style="display:none;"><a href="#" class="nbcomment" onClick="toggleComments();return false;">Comments</a></li><li><a class="nbinfo" href="/Firmware?action=info" rel="nofollow">Info</a></li><li><a class="nbattachments" href="/Firmware?action=AttachFile" rel="nofollow">Attachments</a></li><li> <form class="actionsmenu" method="GET" action="/Firmware"> <div> <label>More Actions:</label> <select name="action" onchange="if ((this.selectedIndex != 0) && (this.options[this.selectedIndex].disabled == false)) { this.form.submit(); } this.selectedIndex = 0;"> <option value="raw">Raw Text</option> <option value="print">Print View</option> <option value="RenderAsDocbook">Render as Docbook</option> <option value="refresh">Delete Cache</option> <option value="show" disabled class="disabled">------------------------</option> <option value="SpellCheck">Check Spelling</option> <option value="LikePages">Like Pages</option> <option value="LocalSiteMap">Local Site Map</option> <option value="show" disabled class="disabled">------------------------</option> <option value="RenamePage" disabled class="disabled">Rename Page</option> <option value="DeletePage" disabled class="disabled">Delete Page</option> <option value="show" disabled class="disabled">------------------------</option> <option value="show" disabled class="disabled">Subscribe User</option> <option value="show" disabled class="disabled">------------------------</option> <option value="show" disabled class="disabled">Remove Spam</option> <option value="show" disabled class="disabled">Revert to this revision</option> <option value="PackagePages">Package Pages</option> <option value="show" disabled class="disabled">------------------------</option> <option value="Load">Load</option> <option value="Save">Save</option> <option value="SlideShow">SlideShow</option> </select> <input type="submit" value="Do"> </div> <script type="text/javascript">  </script> </form> </li></ul> <h1 id="locationline"> <ul id="pagelocation"> <li><a href="/Firmware">Firmware</a></li> </ul> </h1> </div> <div id="page" lang="en" dir="ltr"> <div dir="ltr" id="content" lang="en"> <a href="/DebianWiki/EditorGuide#translation">Translation(s)</a>: <a href="/Firmware">English</a> - <a href="/es/Firmware">Espa帽ol</a> - <a href="/fr/firmware">Fran莽ais</a> - <a href="/it/Firmware">Italiano</a> - <a href="/pt_BR/Firmware">Portugu锚s (Brasil)</a> <hr /> <div class="important">The Debian project <a class="https" href="https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2022/10/msg00001.html">took the decision</a> in October 2022 to create a new repository component <tt class="backtick">non-free-firmware</tt>, and include its content on installation media for the upcoming Debian 12 release (bookworm) to make things easier for our users. This change was implemented in time for the bookworm alpha 2 release of debian-installer in February 2023, and all d-i releases and daily and weekly images since then all include firmware. For information for older releases, see <a href="/Firmware#older">"Older releases"</a> further down this page. </div><div class="table-of-contents">Contents<ol><li> <a href="#What_is_firmware.3F">What is firmware?</a></li><li> <a href="#Using_non-free_firmware_on_a_Debian_system">Using non-free firmware on a Debian system</a><ol><li> <a href="#Debian_12_.28bookworm.29_and_later">Debian 12 (bookworm) and later</a><ol><li> <a href="#How_to_disable_detection_and_use_of_non-free_firmware">How to disable detection and use of non-free firmware</a></li></ol></li><li> <a href="#Older_releases">Older releases</a><ol><li> <a href="#Firmware_during_the_installation">Firmware during the installation</a></li><li> <a href="#Firmware_after_installation">Firmware after installation</a></li></ol></li></ol></li><li> <a href="#Firmware_missing_from_Debian">Firmware missing from Debian</a></li><li> <a href="#Location_of_firmware_files">Location of firmware files</a><ol><li> <a href="#Debian_8_.22Jessie.22_and_newer">Debian 8 "Jessie" and newer</a></li><li> <a href="#Debian_7_.22Wheezy.22.2C_Debian_6.0_.22Squeeze.22">Debian 7 "Wheezy", Debian 6.0 "Squeeze"</a></li></ol></li><li> <a href="#List_of_firmware_in_Debian">List of firmware in Debian</a></li><li> <a href="#Free_and_Open_Source_boot_firmware">Free and Open Source boot firmware</a></li><li> <a href="#Computer_Firmware">Computer Firmware</a></li><li> <a href="#Updating_firmware">Updating firmware</a></li></ol></div> <h1 id="What_is_firmware.3F">What is firmware?</h1> Firmware refers to embedded software which controls electronic devices. Well-defined boundaries between firmware and software do not exist, as both terms cover some of the same code. Typically, the term firmware deals with low-level operations in a device, without which the device would be completely non-functional (read more on <a class="interwiki" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firmware" title="WikiPedia">Wikipedia</a>). Many devices require firmware to operate. Historically, firmware would be built into the device's ROM or Flash memory, but more and more often, a firmware image has to be loaded into the device RAM by a device driver during device initialisation. <a href="/Firmware/Open">A few</a> firmware images are Free Software and Open Source but unfortunately almost all of them are <a class="https" href="https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-archive#s-non-free">non-free</a>, which means that Debian cannot include them as normal in the archive under main or contrib. <h1 id="Using_non-free_firmware_on_a_Debian_system">Using non-free firmware on a Debian system</h1> <h2 id="Debian_12_.28bookworm.29_and_later">Debian 12 (bookworm) and later</h2> For Debian 12 onwards, all the packaged non-free firmware binaries that Debian can distribute have been moved to a new component in the Debian archive, called non-free-firmware. If you're upgrading from an older release of Debian and you need these firmware binaries, you should update the apt sources.list on your system to use this new component. If you only had the non-free component enabled on your system to allow you to install firmware, you can safely remove that now. Debian's installation and live images now include all of those firmware packages. The system should automatically detect, load and install the firmware available for your devices, where possible. There are a small number of cases where Debian can't do this, typically because of not being allowed to distribute the needed firmware binaries. If you are booting the Debian installer over the network, that will not include all the firmware packages in the initramfs. This is a deliberate choice due to the extra space needed for all the firmware here. Many/most users will already need to modify the initramfs when setting up netboot, so an extra step here is reasonable. Adding the firmware blobs to your initramfs is easy: simply grab the appropriate cpio archive for your target release from <a class="https" href="https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/firmware/">https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/firmware/</a> and append it directly to the initramfs file. <h3 id="How_to_disable_detection_and_use_of_non-free_firmware">How to disable detection and use of non-free firmware</h3> From Debian 12, the installer will automatically check for needed firmware blobs and add them as required. If you would prefer it not to, add <pre>firmware=never</pre>to the installer boot parameters as described in the <a class="https" href="https://www.debian.org/releases/bookworm/amd64/ch02s02.en.html">installation guide</a>. On a Debian Live ISO, add <pre>firmware=never live-installer/enable=false</pre>to the installer boot parameters as described in the <a class="https" href="https://live-team.pages.debian.net/live-manual/html/live-manual/customizing-installer.en.html">Debian Installer Live Manual</a>. Note: using firmware=never will also skip free firmware detection and installation, so you will have to do it manually in case it is needed. <h2 id="Older_releases">Older releases</h2> For Debian 11 (bullseye) and older, Debian did not include firmware on official installation and live images. The following sections should help you if you need firmware there. <h3 id="Firmware_during_the_installation">Firmware during the installation</h3> In some cases the installer detects the need for non-free firmware and prompts the user to make the firmware available to the installer to complete the installation. This can happen, for example, with wireless network cards which often require non-free firmware to function (see <a href="/ipw2200">ipw2200</a> for an example). <h4 id="Installation_images_with_firmware">Installation images with firmware</h4> An easy method is to use an installer image that includes all non-free firmware packages directly. See <a class="https" href="https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-including-firmware/">https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-including-firmware/</a> <h4 id="Firmware_on_removable_media">Firmware on removable media</h4> You can also download the firmware archive for your platform and unpack it into a directory named <tt class="backtick">firmware</tt> in the root of a removable storage device (USB/CD drive). You can find firmware downloads for your Debian version at <a class="https" href="https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/firmware/">https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/firmware/</a>. When the installer starts, it will automatically find the firmware files in the directory on the removable storage and, if needed, install the required firmware. In some cases, firmware supplied on removable media may not be detected automatically (e.g. <a class="interwiki" href="https://bugs.debian.org/740503" title="DebianBug">740503</a>). In these situations, drop to the console (<tt class="backtick">Ctrl+alt+F2</tt>) and manually <a class="interwiki" href="https://manpages.debian.org/man/8/mount" title="DebianMan">mount(8)</a> your removable storage on a temporary directory (e.g. <tt class="backtick">/media</tt>). <h4 id="Firmware_on_removable_media_and_preseeding">Firmware on removable media and preseeding</h4> It is also possible to bypass the installer's searching and installation process by <a href="/DebianInstaller/Preseed">preseeding</a> and providing the firmware files directly to the kernel: <ul><li>The needed firmware files are assumed to be in a directory named firmware on a FAT partition formatted with <a class="interwiki" href="https://packages.debian.org/dosfstools" title="DebianPkg">mkfs.vfat</a> and <a class="interwiki" href="https://packages.debian.org/dosfstools" title="DebianPkg">labelled</a> FIRMWARE. </li><li>The following addition is made to the installer's kernel command line. It is a single command but has been broken here for readability. Press TAB when the installation choice is highlighted to make the command line visible. A variation on this technique is presented <a href="/Installation+Archive+USBStick#firmware">elsewhere</a>. </li></ul><pre>Installation+Archive+USBStick preseed/early_command="modprobe vfat ; sleep 2 ; mount /dev/disk/by-label/FIRMWARE /media ; cp -a /media/firmware /lib"</pre><ul><li><a href="/DebianInstaller/NetbootFirmware">NetbootFirmware</a> - Firmware for Netbooting. </li></ul>Once the network is configured, Debian-Installer can fetch firmware from Debian repositories. <h3 id="Firmware_after_installation">Firmware after installation</h3> The <a class="interwiki" href="https://packages.debian.org/isenkram" title="DebianPackage">isenkram</a> and other tools can prompt to install the appropriate firmware and other hardware support packages when the hardware is plugged in. This mostly <a href="/USB/GadgetSetup">relies</a> on packages declaring via <a href="/AppStream">AppStream</a> what hardware they support. This might not work for all firmware, so read on for another solution. If you still see missing firmware console messages when the initramfs is updated (for example whenever a kernel update is applied): <pre>W: Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/i915/skl_guc_62.0.0.bin for module i915</pre>Then you can use <a href="/apt-file">apt-file</a> or the <a class="https" href="https://www.debian.org/distrib/packages#search_contents">Debian package contents search</a> to look for the package that contains the firmware files, install it and then update the initramfs: <pre>$ apt-file search skl_guc_62.0.0.bin firmware-misc-nonfree: /lib/firmware/i915/skl_guc_62.0.0.bin $ sudo apt install firmware-misc-nonfree $ sudo update-initramfs -c -k all</pre> <h1 id="Firmware_missing_from_Debian">Firmware missing from Debian</h1> If the missing firmware is not available in Debian or if you still see missing firmware console messages even when you have the right firmware-* package installed, you can download and install the firmware from the <a class="https" href="https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware.git">linux-firmware</a> repository, e.g. for i915 firmware: <pre>mkdir firmware cd firmware wget -r -nd -e robots=no -A '*.bin' --accept-regex '/plain/' https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware.git/tree/i915/ sudo mv *.bin /lib/firmware/i915/ sudo update-initramfs -c -k all</pre> <h1 id="Location_of_firmware_files">Location of firmware files</h1> <h2 id="Debian_8_.22Jessie.22_and_newer">Debian 8 "Jessie" and newer</h2> <a class="interwiki" href="https://packages.debian.org/udev" title="DebianPkg">udev</a> used in Debian Jessie and later, only checks one directory for firmware files: <tt>/lib/firmware</tt>. See <a class="interwiki" href="https://bugs.debian.org/729252" title="DebianBug">729252</a> for details. <h2 id="Debian_7_.22Wheezy.22.2C_Debian_6.0_.22Squeeze.22">Debian 7 "Wheezy", Debian 6.0 "Squeeze"</h2> Firmware is sourced from the following places (see <a class="interwiki" href="https://packages.debian.org/udev" title="DebianPkg">udev</a>'s <tt>/lib/udev/hotplug.functions</tt> and <tt>/lib/udev/firmware.agent</tt>) <ol type="1"><li><tt>/lib/firmware/$(uname -r)</tt> - Firmware provided by a package, specific for a kernel. </li><li><tt>/lib/firmware/</tt> - Firmware provided by a package, valid for all kernels. </li><li><tt>/usr/local/lib/firmware</tt> - Location for manually installed firmware. </li><li><tt>/usr/lib/hotplug/firmware</tt> - Firmware provided by a package, valid for all kernels </li></ol> <h1 id="List_of_firmware_in_Debian">List of firmware in Debian</h1> <div class="note">To find which package provides a given firmware file, you can use this search page: <a class="https" href="https://www.debian.org/distrib/packages#search_contents">https://www.debian.org/distrib/packages#search_contents</a> </div><a href="/Firmware/List">Firmware/List</a> lists firmware distributed by Debian. <h1 id="Free_and_Open_Source_boot_firmware">Free and Open Source boot firmware</h1> Projects besides Debian can provide FOSS firmware for booting into your Debian system, projects such as coreboot. We maintain a list on <a href="/Firmware/Open">Firmware/Open</a> - some (not all) of them are also packaged by Debian. These projects offer an interesting alternative to many proprietary BIOS/UEFI firmware and other types of firmware. For example, they may provide certain advanced security features. <h1 id="Computer_Firmware">Computer Firmware</h1> <div><table><tbody><tr> <td> EFI/<a href="/UEFI">UEFI</a> </td> <td> Found on most modern x86 PCs and servers, along with some ARM boards - (<a class="interwiki" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Firmware_Interface" title="WikiPedia">wikipedia</a>) </td> </tr> <tr> <td> <a href="/BIOS">BIOS</a> </td> <td> Found on older "IBM-PC" machines, generally most regular PCs and servers that were manufactured before 2011 - (<a class="interwiki" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIOS" title="WikiPedia">wikipedia</a>) </td> </tr> <tr> <td> <a href="/OpenFirmware">OpenFirmware</a> </td> <td> also known as <a href="/OpenBoot">OpenBoot</a>, Found on Sun SPARC systems, IBM Power, PowerPC-based Apple Macintosh, IEEE 1275-1994... (<a class="interwiki" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Firmware" title="WikiPedia">wikipedia</a>) </td> </tr> <tr> <td> Coreboot (LinuxBIOS) </td> <td> Can be used on <a class="https" href="https://doc.coreboot.org/mainboard/">some boards</a> and <a class="https" href="https://doc.coreboot.org/mainboard/index.html#emulation">tested under emulators</a> - (<a class="interwiki" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coreboot" title="WikiPedia">wikipedia</a>) </td> </tr> <tr> <td> PMON2000 </td> <td> Found on the <a href="/DebianYeeloong">Lemote Yeeloong</a> and embedded devices </td> </tr> </tbody></table></div> <h1 id="Updating_firmware">Updating firmware</h1> Firmware can be <a href="/Firmware/Updates">updated</a> using various methods. <hr /> <a href="/CategoryPermalink">CategoryPermalink</a> | <a href="/CategoryHardware">CategoryHardware</a> | <a href="/CategoryProprietarySoftware">CategoryProprietarySoftware</a> </div><div id="pagebottom"></div> </div> <div id="footer"> Firmware (<a class="nbinfo" href="/Firmware?action=info" rel="nofollow">last modified 2025-01-26 16:07:40</a>) <ul id="credits"> <li>Debian <a href="https://www.debian.org/legal/privacy">privacy policy</a>, Wiki <a href="/Teams/DebianWiki">team</a>, <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/wiki.debian.org">bugs</a> and <a href="https://salsa.debian.org/debian/wiki.debian.org">config</a>.</li><li>Powered by <a href="https://moinmo.in/" title="This site uses the MoinMoin Wiki software.">MoinMoin</a> and <a href="https://moinmo.in/Python" title="MoinMoin is written in Python.">Python</a>, with hosting provided by <a href="https://www.man-da.de/">Metropolitan Area Network Darmstadt</a>.</li> </ul> </div> </body> </html>