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<H1>[Mageia-dev] [RFC] radeon firmware in non-free</H1>
<B>Thomas Backlund</B>
<A HREF="mailto:mageia-dev%40mageia.org?Subject=Re%3A%20%5BMageia-dev%5D%20%5BRFC%5D%20radeon%20firmware%20in%20non-free&In-Reply-To=%3C4FC5E3D0.1030701%40mageia.org%3E"
TITLE="[Mageia-dev] [RFC] radeon firmware in non-free">tmb at mageia.org
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<I>Wed May 30 11:09:36 CEST 2012</I>
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<PRE>30.05.2012 11:38, Thierry Vignaud skrev:
><i> Hi
</I>><i>
</I>><i> I think we must discuss the following point for next release:
</I>><i> currently radeon firmwares are in non-free.
</I>><i>
</I>><i> However this break havoc quite a lot of install b/c by default
</I>><i> non-free is not enabled.
</I>><i>
</I>
So its an installer issue.
><i> 1) This makes the Mageia experience horrible on some machines
</I>><i> (black screen, machines unusable by newbies (and worse
</I>><i> unrecoverable by newbies), ...)
</I>><i> Newer ATI/AMD cards cannot work w/o the needed firmware.
</I>><i> That's also the issue with several network cards.
</I>><i> (which makes network installation impossible by default)
</I>
So people should think twice about what hw they want to buy/use.
><i>
</I>><i> 2) this is unlike the live-cd where we've those firmwares (and
</I>><i> the proprietary drivers as well)
</I>><i>
</I>
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)
><i> 3) This is unlike other "pure" FOSS distro such as Fedora
</I>><i> which includes the firmwares.
</I>
Well, that's their choice, not ours...
><i>
</I>><i> So there're two kinds of Linux distro:
</I>><i> - those who provides free& proprietary drivers
</I>><i> - those who only provides free drivers, with the needed firmwares
</I>><i>
</I>><i> Mageia choose to provides either the first experience (the live cd
</I>><i> case) or the worst one, the free drivers w/o the needed firmwares.
</I>><i>
</I>><i> A lot of thing broke havoc when firmwares get split from kernels.
</I>><i> According to their licence (or their lack of license), we choose
</I>><i> to distribute them in:
</I>><i> - either kernel-firmware, always available and always installed
</I>><i> - or kernel-firmware-nonfree, unavailable and not installed by default
</I>><i>
</I>><i> This make a lot of free drivers stop to work by default (at least with
</I>><i> the classic installer, it's OK with the livecd)
</I>><i>
</I>><i> So we offer the choice between:
</I>><i> - either be able to choose between working proprietary driver and
</I>><i> working free driver
</I>><i> - or to have non working free driver
</I>><i> This is _INSANE_.
</I>><i>
</I>><i> I think It's time we reconsider this.
</I>><i>
</I>><i> Firmwares do not run on the main CPU.
</I>><i> They're needed for additional chips where no one will ever
</I>><i> ever write a program for.
</I>>><i> From the main CPU/memory view point they're data.
</I>
But not from our perspective about free-only.
><i>
</I>><i> I think we should offer the choice to:
</I>><i> - either be able to choose between working proprietary driver and
</I>><i> working free driver
</I>><i> - or to have _working_ free driver
</I>><i> (that is including the needed firmwares)
</I>><i>
</I>
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)
- 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.
--
Thomas
</PRE>
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