Squeeze, firmware and installation
Hi, It seems the kernel team has moved alot of firmware to non-free, which means that more people will need to use pieces from non-free to be able to use their computer. So I was wondering what the state is of everything, and what issues people will run into, specially when installing. I'm also wondering what people think about adding some firmware to our official installation media. Kurt -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20100505162955.ga17...@roeckx.be
Re: Squeeze, firmware and installation
Kurt Roeckx k...@roeckx.be writes: It seems the kernel team has moved alot of firmware to non-free, which means that more people will need to use pieces from non-free to be able to use their computer. So I was wondering what the state is of everything, and what issues people will run into, specially when installing. I'm also wondering what people think about adding some firmware to our official installation media. Hmm. Is the release already so close that it's time to have this flamewar again? Shouldn't we wait a month or two for maximal effect? Seriously speaking, to me it seems very clear that non-free firmware will not be present on official installer images. Then again, the installer team has made it very easy to inject firmware during installation on machines where it's needed. I can't see anything else that would need to be done here, and I'd prefer not having to vote about it if at all possible. -- Arto Jantunen -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87r5lq5g7p@viiru.iki.fi
Re: Squeeze, firmware and installation
On Wed, 05 May 2010, Arto Jantunen wrote: Kurt Roeckx k...@roeckx.be writes: It seems the kernel team has moved alot of firmware to non-free, which means that more people will need to use pieces from non-free to be able to use their computer. So I was wondering what the state is of everything, and what issues people will run into, specially when installing. I'm also wondering what people think about adding some firmware to our official installation media. Hmm. Is the release already so close that it's time to have this flamewar again? Shouldn't we wait a month or two for maximal effect? Seriously speaking, to me it seems very clear that non-free firmware will not be present on official installer images. Then again, the installer team has made it very easy to inject firmware during installation on machines where it's needed. Have they? It's the most painful thing every time I need to setup a new box. It's the most time consuming part too, easily doubling or trippling the time, if not worse, it takes to install a new system. Most if the time it involves re-creating installer media because debian can't be arsed to be useful by default. Is that what you mean with very easy? -- | .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** Peter Palfrader | : :' : The universal http://www.palfrader.org/ | `. `' Operating System | `-http://www.debian.org/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20100505191052.gu16...@anguilla.noreply.org
Re: Squeeze, firmware and installation
Peter Palfrader wea...@debian.org writes: On Wed, 05 May 2010, Arto Jantunen wrote: Seriously speaking, to me it seems very clear that non-free firmware will not be present on official installer images. Then again, the installer team has made it very easy to inject firmware during installation on machines where it's needed. Have they? It's the most painful thing every time I need to setup a new box. It's the most time consuming part too, easily doubling or trippling the time, if not worse, it takes to install a new system. Most if the time it involves re-creating installer media because debian can't be arsed to be useful by default. Is that what you mean with very easy? I understood that current Debian Installer takes firmware during install via usb sticks, floppies, etc. If this is not the case, I have understood incorrectly and take back my comment on it being made easy. I am fairly sure that the feature has been there for a while now, and creating new installer images for firmware needs should no longer be needed. -- Arto Jantunen -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87mxwe5ez5@viiru.iki.fi
Re: Squeeze, firmware and installation
On Wed, May 05, 2010 at 09:57:46PM +0300, Arto Jantunen wrote: Hmm. Is the release already so close that it's time to have this flamewar again? Shouldn't we wait a month or two for maximal effect? I think the earlier we have this discussion the better. Seriously speaking, to me it seems very clear that non-free firmware will not be present on official installer images. Then again, the installer team has made it very easy to inject firmware during installation on machines where it's needed. I've heard people complain about how the (lenny?) installer works, and I didn't have the need to install on a machine that requires firmware yet myself. I think the issues I've heard were: - You need 2 installation media. Which also makes an unattended installation harder or impossible. - It didn't find the firmware or didn't look at the usb disk that was plugged in or simular. Maybe it would be helpful if something from the installer team could describe how it's supposed to work now and what the state is. I think their clearly will be a need to create media which has the firmware on it. The current manual points to an unofficial part of cdimage.debian.org to get the latest firmware and says that some might be missing and that you'd need to get it from non-free without much instructions on what to do with it. Kurt -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20100505194511.ga18...@roeckx.be
Re: Squeeze, firmware and installation
Kurt Roeckx k...@roeckx.be writes: I've heard people complain about how the (lenny?) installer works, and I didn't have the need to install on a machine that requires firmware yet myself. I think the issues I've heard were: - You need 2 installation media. Which also makes an unattended installation harder or impossible. FAI should have no trouble doing unattended installation if you choose to add the non-free repositories to the sources.list file and install the firmware in the installation NFS root. (I realize that FAI is overkill for a lot of sites.) -- Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87ocgu5d1v@windlord.stanford.edu
Re: Squeeze, firmware and installation
On 05/05/2010 09:24 PM, Arto Jantunen wrote: I understood that current Debian Installer takes firmware during install via usb sticks, floppies, etc. If this is not the case, I have understood incorrectly and take back my comment on it being made easy. I am fairly sure that the feature has been there for a while now, and creating new installer images for firmware needs should no longer be needed. This is still an annoying thing to handle. If you install machines at different locations regulary, this firmware crap is nothing but a pita. I can't see a reason why we should not be able to ship cd-images in non-free. If debian does not do so officially, I might provide them somewhere. -- Bernd ZeimetzDebian GNU/Linux Developer http://bzed.dehttp://www.debian.org GPG Fingerprints: 06C8 C9A2 EAAD E37E 5B2C BE93 067A AD04 C93B FF79 ECA1 E3F2 8E11 2432 D485 DD95 EB36 171A 6FF9 435F -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4be1e29f.9000...@bzed.de
Re: Squeeze, firmware and installation
On Wed, May 05, 2010 at 11:26:55PM +0200, Bernd Zeimetz wrote: This is still an annoying thing to handle. If you install machines at different locations regulary, this firmware crap is nothing but a pita. I can't see a reason why we should not be able to ship cd-images in non-free. If debian does not do so officially, I might provide them somewhere. Problem is, non-free is not part of Debian. By shipping cd images only in non-free, we'd basically have no cd images in Debian. By shipping images in both main and non-free, we'd be duplicating lots of effort, disk space, bandwidth to mirrors, etc. Personally, if a given piece of firmware is legal to ship and required to make hardware work, I'm in favor of making it available by default (possibly with some form of notice informing the user of this). I acknowledge, however, that there is an argument that this position is not in the spirit of the social contract and DFSG. This has been debated extensively already. noah signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Squeeze, firmware and installation
Le mercredi 05 mai 2010 à 23:26 +0200, Bernd Zeimetz a écrit : This is still an annoying thing to handle. If you install machines at different locations regulary, this firmware crap is nothing but a pita. I can't see a reason why we should not be able to ship cd-images in non-free. Indeed, there is no reason. There is broad consensus that this is fine as long as we keep shipping firmware-free images in main. If debian does not do so officially, I might provide them somewhere. Maybe the reason why Debian doesn’t do so “officially” is that people prefer to whine and initiate stupid votes rather than sticking their fingers out of their arses and just do it? If there really was a need for it, such images would already exist. If you have a need for it, then just do it. And since you’re a DD you can do so “officially”. Cheers, -- .''`. Josselin Mouette : :' : `. `' “If you behave this way because you are blackmailed by someone, `-[…] I will see what I can do for you.” -- Jörg Schilling signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: Squeeze, firmware and installation
On Thu, May 6, 2010 at 12:29 AM, Kurt Roeckx k...@roeckx.be wrote: So I was wondering what the state is of everything, and what issues people will run into, specially when installing. The lenny installer is fine, I haven't tested the squeeze installer yet though. I'm also wondering what people think about adding some firmware to our official installation media. I don't think it is needed. I recently had to install Debian lenny on a HP ProLiant machine, which required bnx2 firmware for the network controller. Just downloaded the firmware .deb from packages.d.o, stuck it on a FAT32 formatted USB stick and everything worked fine. -- bye, pabs http://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/l2ye13a36b31005051815mafad40d8ga46b6f9e4a0ab...@mail.gmail.com
