> On 21 Apr 2022, at 21:14, Gunnar Wolf <gw...@debian.org> wrote: > > Marc Haber dijo [Tue, Apr 19, 2022 at 06:56:54PM +0200]: >> On Tue, 19 Apr 2022 08:21:10 -0600, Sam Hartman <hartm...@debian.org> >> wrote: >>> One valuable suggestion was to make sure users could easily select >>> freedom if that's what they wanted. >>> So I think a free installation image is important. >> >> Would that not be possible by having an image WITH firmware and an >> installer asking whether the user wants a free or a usable system? > > Up to a certain point, I guess. But users do get confused by Debian, a > stubbornly-free distribution, having multiple images –some official, > some unblessed– on different places. > > Maybe if the free image finds (important? i.e. the only connectivity > option, or required for enabling a video card beyond framebuffer?) > hardware for which firmware is required, it could display a prominent > message, suggesting the user to download the > official-but-firmware-carrying images from a simple debian.org URL.
A further evolution of this idea might be adding another question to Debian Installer regarding to non-free software. If the users choose “No” for enabling non-free repositories, another question might ask “Your system seems to need some firmware packages to operate correctly, do you want to enable only the firmware packages, but not the other non-free software?” Normally, the installer asks for “firmware.zip” file if it can’t continue, but it’s already noted that making it work is very very hard (I only succeeded once in my 15 years of Debian use). Maybe making this process easier helps?
