Comment 128 for bug 1842320

Jeremy, there are duplicate firmware files. Replacing duplicates with symlinks is probably the easiest and most efficient way to improve the situation.

I get the following:

> % jdupes -mrS /lib/firmware
> Scanning: 2830 files, 286 items (in 1 specified)
> 405 duplicate files (in 212 sets), occupying 37 MB

With "jdupes -rl", "tar c /lib/firmware | zstd -1" drops from 428MB to 411MB. The effect on initrds is maybe slightly lower iirc but it's still noticeable and it should be very easy and safe for us.

I can't tell exactly how many more people will be able to boot with that change but I think the cost is small enough that it's worth trying. Worst case, every kernel update is faster.