5.10. I have a device that requires non-free firmware. What should I do?

Firmware refers to embedded software which controls electronic devices.

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.

Some devices require non-free firmware to work properly. And there could be

firmware updates in the future.

In Debian release 11 (bullseye) and older, Debian did not include non-free

firmware on official images and live installations. 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, make sure that your

sources.list uses this new component:

http://deb.debian.org/debian trixie main non-free-firmware contrib non-free

For more information please refer to Firmware information in the

Debian Wiki.