Missing Free Firmware?
Hello, On one of my computers when I go to load Trisquel Lite from the disk I get...Missing Free Firmare, Failed to losd firmware. Any advice on how to fix this?
thankyou.
That's just the message Linux-libre spits out when there is no free/libre firmware for something (i.e. the only firmware available is a proprietary binary blob which has been removed). So what it means is you'll be missing some hardware functionality, most likely 3-D acceleration or wireless connectivity.
If the missing functionality is a problem, the proper solution is to replace the offending hardware. A good, simple place to look for new hardware is Think Penguin:
If the missing feature isn't something you need, or if you don't notice that a feature is missing, don't worry about it.
Did the message state what firmware file it couldn't find or what module was trying to look for it?
Hardware drivers (kernel modules) basically program hardware chips with the firmware files to use the hardware.
There are free firmware files in the Trisquel repositories that are not installed by default.
For example, I have a USB WiFi device (Atheros Communications, Inc. AR9271 802.11n). It requires the Atheros AR9271 firmware file (AR9271.fw) to work. This is in the ""open-ath9k-htc-firmware package in the Trisquel repository.
The ath9k_htc module loads AR9271.fw onto the USB WiFi chip...and magically it works.
However, this firmware isn't installed by default.
You might get lucky and discover your device has a free firmware version.
This firmware *is* installed by default. Indeed, the package "trisquel-base" depends on "open-ath9k-htc-firmware".
