-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Sat, Jan 14, 2017 at 10:18:40AM +0100, M.A. Perry wrote: > Dear People, > A question here, not a problem as such. > My (domestic dektop) runs under Debian 8.6 (Jessie) > and has a RealTek ethernet (i.e internet) wired interface. > > On boot-up, the monitor briefly shows a message to the > effect "... failed to load rtl_nic/rtl8168g-2.fw firmware". > Running "dmesg | tail" shows much the same in more detail. > > Nevertheless, the wired ethernet connection to internet > seems to work fine. There is no wireless interface on the > Asus P8B75-MLE motherboard as far as I know. > > The above suggests that other software takes over the > function of the missing Non-Free RealTek driver.
To complement the other (correct) answers given here: the "firmware" is some software running on the network card itself, which contains (at least) one computer. Now there's already some firmware on that card (ROM, flash, whatever persistent storage). But those things are set up to receive more firmware from the operating system on the "main" computer. This brings, as Pascal notes, sometimes optional features, allowing the card to do thins the OS would have to do. In your case things work without the firmware, so it's up to you to choose whether you'd try the firmware or not. (My WiFi hardware also would like to get some firmware. Since it isn't free software, I decided to go without). regards - -- t -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.12 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAlh5/DkACgkQBcgs9XrR2kbvdgCeNu0Wwcv9ivSItT2gWpoLIB6+ nqcAn0AIxMLw/txRVmsfbtvg5mor6aLH =8TXz -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
