On 6/3/11, Gary Montalbine <[email protected]> wrote: > > I got the firmware from the IVTV site and copied it to /lib/firmware >
But that is a band-aid, a kludge, that gives you a cobbled-together system, not to mention it does not really solve the problem for the distro and the wider user base. And every time you need to install Mageia on that hardware, you'll need to apply the kludge again and again. The goal should be to have a distro that 'just works'. Solving the problem by copying files from outside the repositories may point out a deficiency in Mageia repos, but not if the solution can be found within. And this brings up a point of having the tainted repos as "opt-in". This thinking comes from a philosophy of some kind of "pure" Linux which eschews non-free licensed software.However, some hardware can only be useful with non-free software and it's unrealistic to pretend that such hardware does not exist nor that those using such hardware will have the knowledge and skill to enable the tainted repo. I realize that the purists among us have decide to disable the tainted repos by default, but those same people are the ones most likely to have selected hardware that does not depend on non-free software and they are also skilled Linux users. The opt-in approach serves to advance their political agenda at the expense of having a distro that 'just works' for the average to non-technical user. It may be more sense to enable the tainted repos by default and provide an opt-out screen during the installation: "Repositories offering access to software that have non-free licenses are enabled by default. To keep your Mageia system unencumbered by software with restrictive or non-free licenses, please un-check the box. Certain hardware may not function without such non-free software and if you are unsure, leave the box checked." That gives users a choice, makes Mageia a 'just works' distro for the average user and reduces the number of requests for assistance that can be solved by using non-free software. -- Hoyt
