Well from my my understanding the problem is that you can’t pick and choose specific firmware to run on top of the libre kernel, cause they patched it in such a way that it doesn’t really allow you to do it (not sure how it works specifically). I looked into this a bit cause i’m using gnu guix now, but pretty much the only firmware i need is the one for amdgpu. For everything else i could get by with the libre kernel, so i thought it would be neat if i could load only that one specific firmware, but it seems to only be possible to go full libre, or you just need to use the regular linux kernel with its firmware.
Edit: as i was typing this i realized that the nonguix kernel does differentiate between linux firmware and amdgpu firmware. I might have to try removing linux firmware to see if that works, cause if that’s the case then i can pick and choose my specific firmware after all.
Yeah i just edited my comment, i think the nonguix kernel might actually allow you more finegrained control over which firmwares you want to load. I’ll have to experiment with that a bit.
Edit: can now confirm that removing linux-firmware from my config and only keeping amdgpu-firmware in it only loads the gpu firmware. Could easily tell because my wifi card on my desktop needs firmware, and it stopped working afterwards (i’ll probably try to find the specific wifi firmware as well, but not a priority cause i pretty much never use wifi on desktop).
Well from my my understanding the problem is that you can’t pick and choose specific firmware to run on top of the libre kernel, cause they patched it in such a way that it doesn’t really allow you to do it (not sure how it works specifically). I looked into this a bit cause i’m using gnu guix now, but pretty much the only firmware i need is the one for amdgpu. For everything else i could get by with the libre kernel, so i thought it would be neat if i could load only that one specific firmware, but it seems to only be possible to go full libre, or you just need to use the regular linux kernel with its firmware.
Edit: as i was typing this i realized that the nonguix kernel does differentiate between linux firmware and amdgpu firmware. I might have to try removing linux firmware to see if that works, cause if that’s the case then i can pick and choose my specific firmware after all.
You might have to compile your own kernel to get this to work.
It’s always that one firmware you need. Pure libre is only worth it for the ideologically pure, or if you just need a TTY.
Yeah i just edited my comment, i think the nonguix kernel might actually allow you more finegrained control over which firmwares you want to load. I’ll have to experiment with that a bit.
Edit: can now confirm that removing linux-firmware from my config and only keeping amdgpu-firmware in it only loads the gpu firmware. Could easily tell because my wifi card on my desktop needs firmware, and it stopped working afterwards (i’ll probably try to find the specific wifi firmware as well, but not a priority cause i pretty much never use wifi on desktop).