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
Per the contents of my /usr/portage/distfiles, the original undivided package is ~500MB, making it the largest single package I’ve got on my system. Splitting it seems like a very good idea . . . but Gentoo generally prefers not to alter upstream tarballs, so I’m likely stuck.