Distro developers began discussing ways to reduce the size of firmware updates last year. Now, in Ubuntu 26.04, it’s introducing meta-packaging to spread Linux firmware across 17 smaller packages in the
resolutearchives. This resolves a bug filed in 2022.The sub-packages are:
- linux-firmware-mellanox-spectrum
- linux-firmware-intel-wireless
- linux-firmware-intel-graphics
- linux-firmware-amd-graphics
- linux-firmware-nvidia-graphics
- linux-firmware-intel-misc
- linux-firmware-broadcom-wireless
- linux-firmware-netronome
- linux-firmware-misc
- linux-firmware-qlogic
- linux-firmware-marvell-wireless
- linux-firmware-mediatek
- linux-firmware-marvell-prestera
- linux-firmware-realtek
- linux-firmware-qualcomm-wireless
- linux-firmware-qualcomm-graphics
- linux-firmware-qualcomm-misc
Have you ever tried to use Upstart? It was afwul, in practice it was worse than sysvinit+lsb, in a time one woukd thought any new init system can be better.
There was no way to properly define any complex servixe dependencies, especially with optional or alternative components. And making mistake in defining service forking behaviour would open lock the system down so it could not be cleanly shut down. Those were serious flaws in both design an implementation.
I made a mistake trying to use it in a Linux distribution I was co-developing. So much time an effort lost, when we could directly switch to systemd. But systemd was described as ‘work in progress’ an Upstart ‘practically production ready’ then.