[Mageia-dev] [RFC] radeon firmware in non-free

Wed May 30 11:23:40 CEST 2012

On 30 May 2012 11:09, Thomas Backlund <tmb at mageia.org> wrote:
+>> I think we must discuss the following point for next release:
+>> currently radeon firmwares are in non-free.
+>>
+>> However this break havoc quite a lot of install b/c by default
+>> non-free is not enabled.
+>
+> So its an installer issue.
+
+No it's a policy issue.
+media.cfg enforces not installing firmwares by default.
+But builders of live cds overrides this.
+
+Which is inconsistent
+
+Maybe should we split firmwares in another medium that should:
+- be enabled by default
+- be included in the install ISOs
+
+>> 1) This makes the Mageia experience horrible on some machines
+>>     (black screen, machines unusable by newbies (and worse
+>>     unrecoverable by newbies), ...)
+>>     Newer ATI/AMD cards cannot work w/o the needed firmware.
+>>     That's also the issue with several network cards.
+>>     (which makes network installation impossible by default)
+>
+>
+>
+> So people should think twice about what hw they want to buy/use.
+
+Come on you're trolling.
+What's more, _YOU_ are the one building live cds with proprietary drivers... :-)
+
+That is totally inconsistent.
+
+Other distros either use proprietary drivers or free drivers with the
+needed firmwares.
+We do the first (live-cd) and the worst of all choices: free drivers
+w/o the needed firmwares (install ISO)
+
+>> 2) this is unlike the live-cd where we've those firmwares (and
+>>     the proprietary drivers as well)
+>>
+>
+> This is because you cant install rpms on live media...
+> (or you can, but as the change is gone with a reboot,
+>  there is not much point)
+
+Yet it is inconsistent.
+
+>> 3) This is unlike other "pure" FOSS distro such as Fedora
+>>      which includes the firmwares.
+>
+>
+>
+> Well, that's their choice, not ours...
+
+Offering the choice between working proprietary drivers
+and NOT working free drivers is somewhat stupid don't you think?
+
+
+>> So we offer the choice between:
+>> - either be able to choose between working proprietary driver and
+>>   working free driver
+>> - or to have non working free driver
+>> This is _INSANE_.
+>>
+>> I think It's time we reconsider this.
+>>
+>> Firmwares do not run on the main CPU.
+>> They're needed for additional chips where no one will ever
+>> ever write a program for.
+>>>
+>>> From the main CPU/memory view point they're data.
+>
+>
+>
+> But not from our perspective about free-only.
+
+Then why do you promote proprietary drivers on live cds :-) ?
+Again this is totally inconsistent...
+
+And nobody will ever wrote an alternative firmware anyway...
+And in most cases, nobody knows how the internal works.
+And for the AMD/ATI case, the free driver won't pick directly at the
+hardware but will use AtomBIOS to level differences between
+hw (remember the radeonhd fiasco).
+
+Who will rewrite the AMD firmwares for all radeon generations
+and/or make the driver work without Atom BIOS ??
+Come on...
+
+What we're actually promoting to our end users is that free drivers
+suck whereas the live cds with  proprietary drivers works smoothly.
+
+That's a total aberration regarding promoting FOSS
+
+>> I think we should offer the choice to:
+>> - either be able to choose between working proprietary driver and
+>>   working free driver
+>> - or to have _working_ free driver
+>>   (that is including the needed firmwares)
+>>
+>
+> As pointed out in earlier discussions about this issue...
+>
+> There is 2 points needing fix.
+>
+> - the installer should detect the need for nonfree, and ask if people
+>  want to enable it. (or simply ask if user want to add nonfree media)
+
+I'm actually planning to add a media screen in cauldron installer so that
+one can enable/disable media.
+
+But that needs to actually include a nonfree/release subset on the install
+ISO so that those w/o network can enable it.
+
+Detecting need for non-free could then be done (looking at modinfo
+output for needed modules)
+
+> - the other thing to fix is to change the installer option about
+>  "additional CD" to "additional media" and allow for browsing for
+>  additional rpms on a cd/dvd/disk/usb/... media.
+