Firmware is not a driver. It's a blob of non-free microcode that a device driver will load into the target device. I'm pretty sure that the rtl8192eu driver (that you really should find out how it got onto your system, it's NOT part of Debian) will bundle a copy of that firmware with it.
Those third-party DKMS drivers are originally based on Realtek's crappy code, which never were good enough to be included in the kernel. The in-tree kernel drivers meet quality standards from the start.
Believe me, we have gone over these issues many times over on the MX base. I praised the day that most of those janky DKMS Realtek drivers were deprecated by the 6.12-6.14+ rtw89 driver. Huzzah!
Those third-party DKMS drivers are originally based on Realtek's crappy code, which never were good enough to be included in the kernel. The in-tree kernel drivers meet quality standards from the start.
Believe me, we have gone over these issues many times over on the MX base. I praised the day that most of those janky DKMS Realtek drivers were deprecated by the 6.12-6.14+ rtw89 driver. Huzzah!
Statistics: Posted by stevepusser — 2026-02-28 04:28