Source: firmware-nonfree Version: 20260622-1 Severity: wishlist X-Debbugs-Cc: [email protected], [email protected],
Dear Maintainers, Please consider moving the Lontium firmware files currently shipped by firmware-misc-nonfree into a separate binary package; perhaps named firmware-lontium. In particular, this would include the firmware used by Lontium display bridge drivers: * lt9611uxc_fw.bin and any other firmware covered by LICENSE.Lontium that is added to linux-firmware. The LT9611UXC is a MIPI DSI-to-HDMI bridge used on a number of ARM64 development boards, particularly boards based on Qualcomm SoCs. Systems using this bridge require its firmware for display output, but otherwise have little reason to install the much broader firmware-misc-nonfree package. Currently installing the firmware needed for the display bridge also pulls in a large collection of unrelated firmware. This makes it harder to construct small Debian images with a clearly defined firmware set, especially for embedded and development-board installations. A separate package would provide several benefits: * Qualcomm and other ARM64 board images could install the required display bridge firmware without depending on firmware-misc-nonfree. * Dependencies and recommendations could describe the actual hardware requirements more accurately. * Minimal, installer, cloud and embedded images would avoid carrying unrelated firmware. * Future Lontium firmware, such as firmware for additional display or DisplayPort bridge devices, would have a natural vendor-specific package. Although these devices are commonly found on Qualcomm-based boards, I think a vendor-specific package such as firmware-lontium would be preferable to placing the files in firmware-qcom-soc. The bridge is an external Lontium component rather than part of the Qualcomm SoC and it may also be used with platforms from other SoC vendors. The new package could use a description along the following lines: Package: firmware-lontium Architecture: all Description: Binary firmware for Lontium display bridge devices This package contains the binary firmware required by drivers for Lontium display bridge devices, including MIPI DSI-to-HDMI bridges used on some ARM and ARM64 systems. Once available, board-support packages or image-building configurations for affected Qualcomm boards could depend on or recommend firmware-lontium directly. Thanks for considering this split. Cheers! Christopher Obbard
