Hi,

At the moment, fwupd will only be installed by default on systems
installed to use a Gnome desktop (checked for Buster, Bullseye and
Sid).

We should probably pull it in and enable it by default for most
systems (i.e. all desktops and servers) - it's the primary way
expected to drive updates to UEFI system firmware and the DBX
list. Maybe just for UEFI installations?

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Em ter., 18 de jan. de 2022 às 16:15, Steve McIntyre <steve@einval.com>
escreveu:

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Em ter., 18 de jan. de 2022 às 16:39, Osmario Avila <olvavila@gmail.com>
escreveu:

$ apt-cache rdepends fwupd
fwupd
Reverse Depends:
  fwupd-amd64-signed
  fwupd-unsigned
  fwupd-tests
  plasma-discover-backend-fwupd
  gnome-software
  gnome-firmware
  fwupdate

(I removed the duplicates and :arm64 entries from that list)

It's direct dependency list is also rather large and I don't know how to
retrieve its transitive dependency list, but seeing the following items, I
expect a LOT of GLib and other Gnome software will be dragged in:
libgusb2, libjson-glib-1.0-0, libpolkit-gobject-1-0

Not a problem on Gnome DE systems as I assume they'll get them anyway, but
others may not want those.
And then there are the (transitive) recommendations.

For me it's primarily useful on my Thinkpad *laptop* as I'm lucky that Lenovo
supports fwupd (for Thinkpads (at least?)).
On my PC/servers I've only gotten an update once for my Logitech Unifying
Receiver, but most are still on BIOS or hybrid.

When updating my laptop, I always verify that I have a working Live (rescue)
CD/disk because M$ bootloader usually gets enabled by default, so I have to
use a Live disk and then through chroot reinstall GRUB, so I can boot into
Debian again. So for me it's not an entirely smooth experience, which I think
it should be if enabled for everyone.

I really do like the project/initiative btw and I hope many more companies
will provide their updates through that system.
But it would be a stretch to say that we're there yet (or even close).

I would recommend to at least restrict it to those installations as UEFI seems
to be assumed (or even required?).

Given the above *I* would not be in favor of installing it for everyone (just
yet). But I am just one person.

My 0.02

certainly does, via gnome-software, and KDE probably does too, via
plasma-discover-backend-fwupd.

During Debian 13.x install media testing we noted that XFCE,
specifically, does not do this.

I haven't confirmed whether the other desktop tasks do this or not.

I agree, FWIW.
all the desktop environments pull in GLib anyway, and most of them also
pull in GTK (KDE and LXQt might not, but XFCE, LXDE, Cinnamon and MATE
are all GTK-based environments). So, many of these packages will be
installed anyway.

During Debian 13.7 media testing, I tried `apt install fwupd` on a
freshly installed XFCE live-media system (BIOS boot on a Lenovo X220, if
it matters), and here's what it wants to install, with Recommends
enabled:

bolt
fwupd
fwupd-amd64-signed
jq
libflashrom1
libftdi1-2
libfwupd3
libjaylink0
libjcat1
libjq1
libonig5
libprotobuf-c1
libtss2-esys-3.0.2-0t64
libtss2-mu-4.0.1-0t64
libtss2-sys1t64
libtss2-tcti-cmd0t64
libtss2-tcti-device0t64
libtss2-tcti-mssim0t64
libtss2-tcti-swtpm0t64
tpm-udev

Download size: 6,246 kB
Space needed: 17.3 MB

I don't think that's a big size impact.

Anyone who doesn't want to install the packages recommended by tasks is
free to not use the tasks. The tasks are primarily for users who don't
have special requirements and don't know what they want, and I think
those users deserve to get firmware security fixes, if published by
their hardware vendor.

     smcv

GNOME: yes (via gnome-software)
Cinnamon: yes (via gnome-software)
KDE: unconfirmed but probably yes (via Plasma Discover)
XFCE: no
LXQt: no
LXDE: unconfirmed but probably no
MATE: unconfirmed but probably no

     smcv