Re: [Dng] straw poll, non-free firmware for installers
On Fri, Jun 05, 2015 at 01:13:51AM +0100, KatolaZ wrote: Maybe I am the only one unable to see the problem in asking the owner of hardware which requires some essential non-free firmware during installation to put the required firmware on a USB stick during the first boot. If the user has got a way to burn a net-install cd, then he almost surely has no problem into plugging a USB stick on that other computer and copying one file therein Because maybe the user doesn't have a free USB stick available? No, I'm not coming up with theoretical problems: When I was taking courses at the university, there was a smallish LUG there, with its own club room, a few desktops, and a table. Standard practice for installing distros was bring your laptop, and there was a single shared flash drive that stayed in the room as installation media: to install a distro, someone downloads a hybrid ISO, dd's it to the flash drive, and then you boot from it. There was no second flash drive for installing, and frequently no one brought their own flash drive: almost everyone had a login on the university servers, where they could store almost anything, and course work was available via an online portal. In short, there was usually only the flash drive that the CD was written to. From a legal point of view, I would also carefully refrain from redistributing any non-free firmware in Devuan, the main reason being that usually you *don't* have the right to redistribute it, and even if you have got this right from the HW constructor, such right can be withdrawn any moment at their own will, which might be a quite unpleasent surprise for Devuan... There is a *very* large set of non-free firmware for which at least your first claim is false, and for much of it the second is false as well. I've actually read several of the licenses in firmware-linux-nonfree. b43 is/was a notable exception, getting it the b43-fwcutter package... which leads me to mention something else: The criteria for something getting into debian non-free require your claims to be false for that package, if it isn't a downloader or installer. Thanks, Isaac Dunham ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [Dng] straw poll, non-free firmware for installers
On Thu, Jun 04, 2015 at 05:35:32PM +0200, Anto wrote: [cut] Hello KatolaZ, Since Devuan is clearly a fork of Debian, does it have to respect Debian policy and follow what Debian does? I don't think the approach suggested in this thread will make Devuan the same as Ubuntu. The approach is basically just to ease up the net-install process for the users if I am not wrong. Anto, I was not the one bringing (erroneously) in the discussion the default policy unsed by Debian about firmware to support his point :) I was just pointing out a fact which is in striking contrast with was somebody *believed* was the default in Debian, maybe confusing it for the default in some other distro... Maybe I am the only one unable to see the problem in asking the owner of hardware which requires some essential non-free firmware during installation to put the required firmware on a USB stick during the first boot. If the user has got a way to burn a net-install cd, then he almost surely has no problem into plugging a USB stick on that other computer and copying one file therein From a legal point of view, I would also carefully refrain from redistributing any non-free firmware in Devuan, the main reason being that usually you *don't* have the right to redistribute it, and even if you have got this right from the HW constructor, such right can be withdrawn any moment at their own will, which might be a quite unpleasent surprise for Devuan... HND KatolaZ -- [ Enzo Nicosia aka KatolaZ --- GLUG Catania -- Freaknet Medialab ] [ me [at] katolaz.homeunix.net -- http://katolaz.homeunix.net -- ] [ GNU/Linux User:#325780/ICQ UIN: #258332181/GPG key ID 0B5F062F ] [ Fingerprint: 8E59 D6AA 445E FDB4 A153 3D5A 5F20 B3AE 0B5F 062F ] ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [Dng] Pie in the sky: Devuan on nonfree phones and tablets
On Thu, Jun 4, 2015 at 5:14 PM, Hendrik Boom hend...@topoi.pooq.com wrote: On Thu, Jun 04, 2015 at 04:20:33PM -0400, Apollia wrote: I would find it particularly amusing if it were possible to install Devuan on an iPhone. :-) Or anything else the average person wouldn't expect Linux to work on. Someone gave me an iPhone 4S a few years ago in the hope that I would use it to make a living writing proprietary software. Since I wasn't willing to do that, it's not much use to me, so, maybe I'll experiment with trying to get Devuan to work on it someday. :-) (Unless I hear that it's totally unfeasible.) I would *love* to replace Android with Devuan on my ASUS Transformer tablet, initially as dual-boot until I manage to migrate completely. Pie in the sky, for now. -- hendrik Thanks for the feedback. :-) I'll keep focusing on more practical things for now, then. :-) Best wishes, Apollia ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [Dng] straw poll, non-free firmware for installers
On Thu, 4 Jun 2015 15:09:21 +0100 KatolaZ kato...@freaknet.org wrote: On Thu, Jun 04, 2015 at 09:51:36AM -0400, Clarke Sideroad wrote: [cut] With all the effort that has gone into this so far it deserves to be a major distro and it would appear to this guy watching from the fringe that the necessary brain power is here, but without a noticeably sized user base it will be seen through the eyes of blogger/journalist filtered history as the few weirdos who couldn't face the future of computing. Do not forget the bigger picture. Debian has been a major distro for almost 20 years now, is the largest homogeneous package base in the free software arena, has inspired literally thousands of other distributions, and has never installed non-free stuff by default, or recommended the usage of third-party proprietary video drivers, or promoted the installation of non-free firmware... I just don't see the problem in continuing along this path. This is not what will kill Devuan, by any means. My2Cents KatolaZ KatolaZ, I don't think anyone's recommending nonfree by default or promotion, *unless* the only other choice is we won't install on this hardware at all. Rather than talking about the mechanisms involved, let me talk about my experience as a user. Debian was fine. It offered me an easy way to install nonfree software, which I did, but that was not the default. Debian installed on all the hardware I ever had. Whatever Debian's been doing regarding free and nonfree software, it's been working for me as a user. I think that for the most part we should continue doing whatever Debian was doing. It worked, it worked well. Here are the two things I think we should *not* do: 1) Refuse to install, due to ideological purity, on hardware we *could* have installed on. As far as I know, Debian doesn't do this. 2) Deliberately obscure methods of installing nonfree software. As far as I know, Debian doesn't do this. SteveT Steve Litt June 2015 featured book: The Key to Everyday Excellence http://www.troubleshooters.com/key ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [Dng] straw poll, non-free firmware for installers
Le 04/06/2015 17:08, KatolaZ a écrit : The debian installer does*not* provide non-free firmware but allows the user to provide it in a separete medium (e.g.,a USB stick) and the installer will ask during installation if the user wants to use that firmware. There is a*separate* netinst CD which includes non-free firmware for network adapters, and no more. It is made available, but it is*not* the default netinst, and marked as*unofficial*. I didn't notice the existence of this unofficial netinst cd. Hope it will exist for Devuan. Actually, if it wasn't hidden in some way, it would be the practical default, I mean the one chosen by the default educated user. Everyone prefers to avoid the burden to provide a firmware package in an usb stick :-) Didier ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [Dng] straw poll, non-free firmware for installers
On 04/06/15 17:08, KatolaZ wrote: On Thu, Jun 04, 2015 at 10:42:49AM -0400, Hendrik Boom wrote: [cut] But Debian does allow the installation of nonfree drivers. And, if I recall correctly last time I installed (a long, long time ago), it did ask the question. We want the reputation of rejecting monolithic blocks of horrible code when that is practical, and in the case of systemd, we want to show that it is practical, and even beneficial. We don't want to give the impression that without systemd, video card performance is the pits. This is the standard policy in Debian, AFAIK: https://wiki.debian.org/Firmware#Firmware_during_the_installation The debian installer does *not* provide non-free firmware but allows the user to provide it in a separete medium (e.g.,a USB stick) and the installer will ask during installation if the user wants to use that firmware. There is a *separate* netinst CD which includes non-free firmware for network adapters, and no more. It is made available, but it is *not* the default netinst, and marked as *unofficial*. I honestly don't mind about a journalist complaining about the fact that Devuan does not supply third-party non-free drivers for his video card, because a substantial majority of the distributions, including also Debian, do the same (i.e., they do *not* provide non-free drivers upon installation). HND KatolaZ Hello KatolaZ, Since Devuan is clearly a fork of Debian, does it have to respect Debian policy and follow what Debian does? I don't think the approach suggested in this thread will make Devuan the same as Ubuntu. The approach is basically just to ease up the net-install process for the users if I am not wrong. Cheers, Anto ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [Dng] straw poll, non-free firmware for installers
On June 3, 2015 at 9:33 PM John Morris jmor...@beau.org wrote: On Thu, 2015-06-04 at 02:52 +0200, Adam Borowski wrote: On Wed, Jun 03, 2015 at 06:18:37PM -0500, John Morris wrote: Non-free software: NO, Firmware: YES. So ixnay on things like the Nvidia drivers but yes on blobs. The reasoning on where to draw the line is pretty clear cut. How exactly firmware is not software? Both are strings of bits encoding commands for a processor living in silicon you own. So if the manufacturer puts the same firmware in an eeprom it isn't a problem? Or the BIOS itself? Are you running a Free BIOS? Do YOU know what your ACPI BIOS is doing right now? How about the CPU, ... ... In a more perfect world I'd agree that all that stuff should be open too, but it ain't, it ain't going to be. RMS managed to find -one- oddball machine that meets his definition of Free, if the vendor of that machine tried to sell them on the open market outside China they would find few takers. Bunnie's Novena 'Open Laptop' has blobs and closed 3d video drivers as well. Good luck tilting at this windmill. Where we can and should draw the line is in the kernel's address space. Blobs loaded into the kernel make the entire system untrustworthy and unmaintainable in ways a firmware blob loaded at initialization into an entirely different microcontroller managing WiFi doesn't. Not to mention that for regulatory reasons most vendors just aren't going to discuss the point with us. The situation stinks but changing it is beyond our current capabilities. For some years RMS used a Lemote Yeeloong notebook with a 10 inch screen (the oddball machine you were referring to). Several years ago the continuing availability of that machine became doubtful. Around the same time it was discovered that a certain model of Thinkpad could be corebooted and had acceptable freeness, so he switched to that. Earlier this year another computer was brought on the market: http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/endorsement/gluglug (I don't know if RMS is using this one or not). http://www.fsf.org/ryf and https://www.h-node.org/ are useful resources for finding hardware supported by free software distributions. Last I heard, RMS applies the following criterion to firmware: if the user can't change it, it doesn't have to be examined for freeness. So, the power controller on the Yeeloong was exempt because it can't be changed. But the Raspberry Pi relies on a video controller blob which is loaded at boot time and won't function without it. So it is not free because the blob could in principle be changed. I don't know what he thinks about chips which can be programmed using JTAG but which don't get firmware loaded at run time. And as far as FPGAs in general are concerned I don't know of any which can be programmed without the aid of proprietary software tools and secret data stream formats. I would like to be proven wrong about this. Recently I heard about Cubic ( http://cubicboard.org/ ) and OpenCores ( http://opencores.org/ ) has been around for a while. Peter Olson ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [Dng] straw poll, non-free firmware for installers
On Thu, Jun 04, 2015 at 09:51:36AM -0400, Clarke Sideroad wrote: [cut] With all the effort that has gone into this so far it deserves to be a major distro and it would appear to this guy watching from the fringe that the necessary brain power is here, but without a noticeably sized user base it will be seen through the eyes of blogger/journalist filtered history as the few weirdos who couldn't face the future of computing. Do not forget the bigger picture. Debian has been a major distro for almost 20 years now, is the largest homogeneous package base in the free software arena, has inspired literally thousands of other distributions, and has never installed non-free stuff by default, or recommended the usage of third-party proprietary video drivers, or promoted the installation of non-free firmware... I just don't see the problem in continuing along this path. This is not what will kill Devuan, by any means. My2Cents KatolaZ -- [ Enzo Nicosia aka KatolaZ --- GLUG Catania -- Freaknet Medialab ] [ me [at] katolaz.homeunix.net -- http://katolaz.homeunix.net -- ] [ GNU/Linux User:#325780/ICQ UIN: #258332181/GPG key ID 0B5F062F ] [ Fingerprint: 8E59 D6AA 445E FDB4 A153 3D5A 5F20 B3AE 0B5F 062F ] ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [Dng] straw poll, non-free firmware for installers
On Thu, Jun 04, 2015 at 10:42:49AM -0400, Hendrik Boom wrote: [cut] But Debian does allow the installation of nonfree drivers. And, if I recall correctly last time I installed (a long, long time ago), it did ask the question. We want the reputation of rejecting monolithic blocks of horrible code when that is practical, and in the case of systemd, we want to show that it is practical, and even beneficial. We don't want to give the impression that without systemd, video card performance is the pits. This is the standard policy in Debian, AFAIK: https://wiki.debian.org/Firmware#Firmware_during_the_installation The debian installer does *not* provide non-free firmware but allows the user to provide it in a separete medium (e.g.,a USB stick) and the installer will ask during installation if the user wants to use that firmware. There is a *separate* netinst CD which includes non-free firmware for network adapters, and no more. It is made available, but it is *not* the default netinst, and marked as *unofficial*. I honestly don't mind about a journalist complaining about the fact that Devuan does not supply third-party non-free drivers for his video card, because a substantial majority of the distributions, including also Debian, do the same (i.e., they do *not* provide non-free drivers upon installation). HND KatolaZ -- [ Enzo Nicosia aka KatolaZ --- GLUG Catania -- Freaknet Medialab ] [ me [at] katolaz.homeunix.net -- http://katolaz.homeunix.net -- ] [ GNU/Linux User:#325780/ICQ UIN: #258332181/GPG key ID 0B5F062F ] [ Fingerprint: 8E59 D6AA 445E FDB4 A153 3D5A 5F20 B3AE 0B5F 062F ] ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [Dng] straw poll, non-free firmware for installers
On 06/04/2015 07:23 AM, KatolaZ wrote: On Thu, Jun 04, 2015 at 11:36:22AM +0100, David Harrison wrote: On 04/06/2015 02:52, dng-requ...@lists.dyne.org wrote: If it is the resounding will of the community to absolutely not ship the default installer with this approach, then I will withdraw from Devuan and someone else can take over the maintenance of the packages I've been working on. Daniel, you're doing a great job and I think your proposal is entirely reasonable. Please stay with us. Guys, I admit I have seen very good points on both sides (which are indeed just two slightly different aspects of the *same* side, that is trying to avoid non-free software to proliferate), but I genuinely don't undesrstand the either we all play as I like or I withdraw my own toys and go play alone elsewhere approach :( The choices and the ease of workarounds made here could easily spell the life or death of this distribution and I for one as a long term simple Linux user thinks it is crucial that it survives long term both as a distribution in its own right and as a base and inspiration for further non-systemd offshoots. Most of us on this list are pretty hardcore Linux users and can personally, one way or another, work around almost anything thrown at us, using our own work or the work of others, while this is great, we should not let it restrict our frame of reference too tightly. I think while the distribution doesn't necessarily have to target newbies the distro must appeal to enough run of the mill Linux users, people escaping from claws of systemd in their current choice, to be more than a niche offering. State the principles of Free Software up front and the correctness of that choice, but allow after jumping over a fence, the installation to be easy enough for an intermediate user to to work through a full install on modern store bought equipment and be able to document the process for others with lesser skills. Those who are trying to split the video card away from the network card, the USB bus, the CPU and memory don't forget that these days that can be a single interdependent encapsulated mass from a number of major suppliers world wide, surface mounted or dropped in a socket, with or without integrated memory. To many the entangled binary blob _IS_ the computer and that is not going to go away anytime soon. With all the effort that has gone into this so far it deserves to be a major distro and it would appear to this guy watching from the fringe that the necessary brain power is here, but without a noticeably sized user base it will be seen through the eyes of blogger/journalist filtered history as the few weirdos who couldn't face the future of computing. Do not forget the bigger picture. Clarke ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [Dng] straw poll, non-free firmware for installers
On Thu, Jun 04, 2015 at 03:09:21PM +0100, KatolaZ wrote: On Thu, Jun 04, 2015 at 09:51:36AM -0400, Clarke Sideroad wrote: [cut] With all the effort that has gone into this so far it deserves to be a major distro and it would appear to this guy watching from the fringe that the necessary brain power is here, but without a noticeably sized user base it will be seen through the eyes of blogger/journalist filtered history as the few weirdos who couldn't face the future of computing. Do not forget the bigger picture. Debian has been a major distro for almost 20 years now, is the largest homogeneous package base in the free software arena, has inspired literally thousands of other distributions, and has never installed non-free stuff by default, or recommended the usage of third-party proprietary video drivers, or promoted the installation of non-free firmware... I just don't see the problem in continuing along this path. This is not what will kill Devuan, by any means. But Debian does allow the installation of nonfree drivers. And, if I recall correctly last time I installed (a long, long time ago), it did ask the question. We want the reputation of rejecting monolithic blocks of horrible code when that is practical, and in the case of systemd, we want to show that it is practical, and even beneficial. We don't want to give the impression that without systemd, video card performance is the pits. -- hendrik ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [Dng] straw poll, non-free firmware for installers
James Powell [2015-06-04 02:57]: Firmware is part of the kernel in a sense because it is loaded by the kernel at boot. It only interacts with the kernel and the kernel modules to provide any missing functionality, like a header file does, except rather than C code, it's prebuilt binary language code. It is not technically software because it doesn't act through an API, shell interpreter, user interface, or execution medium. And another point, most devices that do not require loading firmware from disk _already_ has non-free firmware on-board, in an eprom chip or similar. -- Hilsen Harald ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [Dng] straw poll, non-free firmware for installers
Am Donnerstag, 4. Juni 2015 schrieb Steve Litt: [...] Why, why, WHY was that not stated *right up front*? From the beginning, *scream* Don't waste time: If you get a prompt saying unsupported hardware, load the right stuff into your thumbdrive and just try again. Very explicit, exact instructions should be given how to do this. Imagine the difference... You come home from Costco clutching your brand new laptop, all hot and bothered to install Devuan because you've heard it's simpler and better made than the others. You boot your Devuan DVD, and it tells you your network card needs a firmware. Fortunately for you, the documentation *screamed* that you might need nonfree firmware, walked you through exactly how to thumb-drive it, you use a different computer to put it on the thumb drive, stick it in, try again, and the install goes perfectly. Devuan was every bit as good as you thought. Bottom line: Be on the same team as reasonable users. SteveT +1, but who says the thumb drive will work without firmware for the USB host? Nik -- Please do not email me anything that you are not comfortable also sharing with the NSA. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [Dng] straw poll, non-free firmware for installers
I think we can draw a line in this discussion this way: Daniel will implement the installer in the way he was saying, adding non-free firmwares limited to the ones that if missed are blocking for the installer ( so, nothing more than few firmwares for things like network cards or wifi, for example ), with the choice for the user to select them but disabled by default, and making the user knowing that he is selecting a non-free firmware. This will be our default installer. When our infrastructure will use that installer to build the iso images, a script will also build another image with all those non-free firmware removed, and this will be our free image. Both will be marked as official, and the name of the generated isos will be something like devuan-jessie-...-full.iso and devuan-jessie-...-free.iso This way i hope we will make all happy. -- Franco (nextime) Lanza Lonate Pozzolo (VA) - Italy SIP://c...@casa.nexlab.it web: http://www.nexlab.net NO TCPA: http://www.no1984.org you can download my public key at: http://danex.nexlab.it/nextime.asc || Key Servers Key ID = D6132D50 Key fingerprint = 66ED 5211 9D59 DA53 1DF7 4189 DFED F580 D613 2D50 --- echo 16i[q]sa[ln0=aln100%Pln100/snlbx]sbA0D212153574F444E49572045535520454D20454B414D204F54204847554F4E452059415020544F4E4E4143205345544147204C4C4942snlbxq | dc --- signature.asc Description: PGP signature ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [Dng] straw poll, non-free firmware for installers
On Thu, 4 Jun 2015 16:08:07 +0100 KatolaZ kato...@freaknet.org wrote: On Thu, Jun 04, 2015 at 10:42:49AM -0400, Hendrik Boom wrote: [cut] But Debian does allow the installation of nonfree drivers. And, if I recall correctly last time I installed (a long, long time ago), it did ask the question. We want the reputation of rejecting monolithic blocks of horrible code when that is practical, and in the case of systemd, we want to show that it is practical, and even beneficial. We don't want to give the impression that without systemd, video card performance is the pits. This is the standard policy in Debian, AFAIK: https://wiki.debian.org/Firmware#Firmware_during_the_installation The debian installer does *not* provide non-free firmware but allows the user to provide it in a separete medium (e.g.,a USB stick) and the installer will ask during installation if the user wants to use that firmware. This can be a big problem for the user. Imagine... You're just a normal guy, not a Linux guru. You come home from Costco clutching your brand new laptop, all hot and bothered to install Devuan because you've heard it's simpler and better made than the others. You boot your Devuan DVD, and it tells you your network card needs a firmware. Ummm, what firmware? How do I find it? In what form do I put it on my thumb drive? How do I make it available to the computer? How do I find out the exact make and model of my network card. I guess I should have a System Rescue CD cd hanging around, but I don't, and even so, I'm not all that great at reading the output of lshw and corellating it to where I get firmware, especially since there's all sorts of old and erroneous crap about specific firmware (just google bcm43xx (example https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/Driver/bcm43xx). Getting those old Broadcoms to work took hours or days back in the old days.). Noting that System Rescue CD has no problem with your network card, you install Ubuntu. Bang, it slides on perfectly. Hey, you know, Ubuntu's pretty good. Perhaps Devuan's just not adaptable to varieties of hardware. You'll use Ubuntu. Now look at this quote from the previously quoted Debian firmware wiki page: === Before starting the installation process on hardware unfamiliar to you, a suggestion is to download the firmware tarball for your installation and unpack it into a directory named firmware in the root of a removable storage device. When the installer starts, it will automatically find the firmware files in the directory on the removable storage and, if needed, install the firmware for your hardware. The link to the firmware download for your Debian version is http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/firmware/. === Why, why, WHY was that not stated *right up front*? From the beginning, *scream* Don't waste time: If you get a prompt saying unsupported hardware, load the right stuff into your thumbdrive and just try again. Very explicit, exact instructions should be given how to do this. Imagine the difference... You come home from Costco clutching your brand new laptop, all hot and bothered to install Devuan because you've heard it's simpler and better made than the others. You boot your Devuan DVD, and it tells you your network card needs a firmware. Fortunately for you, the documentation *screamed* that you might need nonfree firmware, walked you through exactly how to thumb-drive it, you use a different computer to put it on the thumb drive, stick it in, try again, and the install goes perfectly. Devuan was every bit as good as you thought. Bottom line: Be on the same team as reasonable users. SteveT Steve Litt June 2015 featured book: The Key to Everyday Excellence http://www.troubleshooters.com/key ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [Dng] straw poll, non-free firmware for installers
On Thu, 04 Jun 2015 21:31:29 +0200 Anto arya...@chello.at wrote: On 04/06/15 20:51, Steve Litt wrote: . snip . Imagine the difference... You come home from Costco clutching your brand new laptop, all hot and bothered to install Devuan because you've heard it's simpler and better made than the others. You boot your Devuan DVD, and it tells you your network card needs a firmware. Fortunately for you, the documentation *screamed* that you might need nonfree firmware, walked you through exactly how to thumb-drive it, you use a different computer to put it on the thumb drive, stick it in, try again, and the install goes perfectly. Devuan was every bit as good as you thought. Bottom line: Be on the same team as reasonable users. SteveT Steve Litt June 2015 featured book: The Key to Everyday Excellence http://www.troubleshooters.com/key Hello Steve, According to the approach that Daniel suggested as I understood it, the story is a bit different... You come home from Costco clutching your brand new laptop, all hot and bothered to install Devuan because you've heard it's simpler and better made than the others. You boot your Devuan DVD, and it tells you your network card needs a firmware. Fortunately for you, the documentation *screamed* that you might need nonfree firmware, walked you through exactly how to thumb-drive it, you use a different computer to put it on the thumb drive, stick it in, try again, The installer gives you the option to choose the firmware from the available list or abort the installation. As you trust the firmware, you select it. If that would be proprietary firmware, you will be given a license agreement to accept or reject it (to abort the installation). After you read (assuming you have time) and accept the license agreement, the install goes perfectly. Devuan was every bit as good as you thought. I am not sure thought if the installer would really do that. Especially on the proprietary part, that looks exactly the same as what Windows does (at work, I don't have any other choice rather than using Windows). Cheers, Anto Yes. The proprietary firmware you choose will look the same as Windows. One tiny part of your $450 laptop will be nonfree, as opposed to the entire OS. The perfect is the enemy of the good. It would be cool if the list you mentioned could tell whether each firmware was free or not, so you could use that as part of your decision. SteveT Steve Litt June 2015 featured book: The Key to Everyday Excellence http://www.troubleshooters.com/key ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [Dng] straw poll, non-free firmware for installers
On 04/06/15 20:51, Steve Litt wrote: . snip . Imagine the difference... You come home from Costco clutching your brand new laptop, all hot and bothered to install Devuan because you've heard it's simpler and better made than the others. You boot your Devuan DVD, and it tells you your network card needs a firmware. Fortunately for you, the documentation *screamed* that you might need nonfree firmware, walked you through exactly how to thumb-drive it, you use a different computer to put it on the thumb drive, stick it in, try again, and the install goes perfectly. Devuan was every bit as good as you thought. Bottom line: Be on the same team as reasonable users. SteveT Steve Litt June 2015 featured book: The Key to Everyday Excellence http://www.troubleshooters.com/key Hello Steve, According to the approach that Daniel suggested as I understood it, the story is a bit different... You come home from Costco clutching your brand new laptop, all hot and bothered to install Devuan because you've heard it's simpler and better made than the others. You boot your Devuan DVD, and it tells you your network card needs a firmware. Fortunately for you, the documentation *screamed* that you might need nonfree firmware, walked you through exactly how to thumb-drive it, you use a different computer to put it on the thumb drive, stick it in, try again, The installer gives you the option to choose the firmware from the available list or abort the installation. As you trust the firmware, you select it. If that would be proprietary firmware, you will be given a license agreement to accept or reject it (to abort the installation). After you read (assuming you have time) and accept the license agreement, the install goes perfectly. Devuan was every bit as good as you thought. I am not sure thought if the installer would really do that. Especially on the proprietary part, that looks exactly the same as what Windows does (at work, I don't have any other choice rather than using Windows). Cheers, Anto ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [Dng] straw poll, non-free firmware for installers
On 04/06/15 21:31, Anto wrote: On 04/06/15 20:51, Steve Litt wrote: . snip . Imagine the difference... You come home from Costco clutching your brand new laptop, all hot and bothered to install Devuan because you've heard it's simpler and better made than the others. You boot your Devuan DVD, and it tells you your network card needs a firmware. Fortunately for you, the documentation *screamed* that you might need nonfree firmware, walked you through exactly how to thumb-drive it, you use a different computer to put it on the thumb drive, stick it in, try again, and the install goes perfectly. Devuan was every bit as good as you thought. Bottom line: Be on the same team as reasonable users. SteveT Steve Litt June 2015 featured book: The Key to Everyday Excellence http://www.troubleshooters.com/key Hello Steve, According to the approach that Daniel suggested as I understood it, the story is a bit different... You come home from Costco clutching your brand new laptop, all hot and bothered to install Devuan because you've heard it's simpler and better made than the others. You boot your Devuan DVD, and it tells you your network card needs a firmware. Fortunately for you, the documentation *screamed* that you might need nonfree firmware, walked you through exactly how to thumb-drive it, you use a different computer to put it on the thumb drive, stick it in, try again, The installer gives you the option to choose the firmware from the available list or abort the installation. As you trust the firmware, you select it. If that would be proprietary firmware, you will be given a license agreement to accept or reject it (to abort the installation). After you read (assuming you have time) and accept the license agreement, the install goes perfectly. Devuan was every bit as good as you thought. I am not sure thought if the installer would really do that. Especially on the proprietary part, that looks exactly the same as what Windows does (at work, I don't have any other choice rather than using Windows). Cheers, Anto Off topic. I am not sure why my Thunderbird does not strike-through this sentence: *Fortunately for you, the documentation *screamed* that you might need nonfree firmware, walked you through exactly how to thumb-drive it, you use a different computer to put it on the thumb drive, stick it in, try again,*. So my email looks strange. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [Dng] straw poll, non-free firmware for installers
On 04/06/15 03:29, Daniel Reurich wrote: Ok, That was interesting Here's my thinking on the how and the why. definition of terms: user = the person using the installer to install Devuan. module = linux kernel module. hardware = reference to the particular chipset(s) in scope, be they SoC or plug in cards or devices. firmware = non-free binary blob that is required to be loaded by the standard kernel module for the hardware in scope in order for the hardware to operate. essential: required for proper operation. How: I will build a (udeb) package called firmware-reqd that: 1) Will provide an early detection of a select list of common essential hardware that: a) requires a non-free firmware blob b) is essential to make the system use-able enough to complete the installation to a bootable state. 2) Upon detection of said hardware, I will provide a prompt informing the user about the specific piece(s) of hardware detected that require non-free firmware to and give them the option to load that firmware and continue the installation or abort it at that point. 3) Only firmware meeting the above criteria will be included in the iso, but not used or loaded unless the operator specifically chooses to do so. 4) The choice to use non-free firmware will naturally lead to the question about whether the related firmware deb packages should be installed during the install. I could provide an option here, defaulting to yes but allowing deselection for those who may want to leverage the non-free firmware only during install but not on the running system. Note: When non-free firmware udebs are installed by debconf my understanding is that each of them will present the user a license upon which is also required to be accepted before that udeb is installed. Why this approach: I agree in principle about using strictly free/libre open source software, and where I have the choice I personaly will select hardware that aligns with those principles. However, I would not want my choices to become the tool that would punish those less informed, or unable to make the sacrifices required to comply entirely with that principle. To do so would be ungracious and unrealistic, and boils down to elitism and puritanism. Nevertheless, to silently let the installation of non-free firmware be done without recognition and challenge is not right either. So I see the most gracious approach is to inform the users and grant them the opportunity to choose how they would like to proceed. It gives opportunity for those who for conscience sake would refuse non-free firmware to do so, whilst not enforcing that choice an all users. I think that this is a reasonable approach, and once the above proposed package is ready, it is my intention to have it included in the official installer images we ship. Anyone that strongly objects can re-build their own installers without the non-free firmware packages added. If it is the resounding will of the community to absolutely not ship the default installer with this approach, then I will withdraw from Devuan and someone else can take over the maintenance of the packages I've been working on. Thanks, Daniel On 03/06/15 20:37, Daniel Reurich wrote: Hi, I'd like a straw poll on whether we should include non-free firmware in our installers by default. It's a deviation from Debians traditional position, but a pragmatic one that shows we care about the end users. Keen for feedback. Hello Daniel, Your initial posting made me assume that all non-free firmwares for the hardware that I have will be automatically installed by default without my consent, hence my vote to exclude them from the default of the installer and options are being provided to select them. But that is not at all the case according to your detail approach above, which is perfectly in line with my preference (and I hope the preference of either the beginner or expert users as well). Thanks a lot for your hard work on this. Cheers, Anto ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [Dng] straw poll, non-free firmware for installers
Daniel Reurich wrote on 04.06.2015 03:29: snip I agree in principle about using strictly free/libre open source software, and where I have the choice I personaly will select hardware that aligns with those principles. However, I would not want my choices to become the tool that would punish those less informed, or unable to make the sacrifices required to comply entirely with that principle. To do so would be ungracious and unrealistic, and boils down to elitism and puritanism. Nevertheless, to silently let the installation of non-free firmware be done without recognition and challenge is not right either. So I see the most gracious approach is to inform the users and grant them the opportunity to choose how they would like to proceed. It gives opportunity for those who for conscience sake would refuse non-free firmware to do so, whilst not enforcing that choice an all users. snip This reads to me as a well balanced approach to tackle this tricky issue. Compromises are necessary, as we're not living in an ideal world. Thank you for working so hard and responsibly on the installer in order to give as many users an experience as smooth as possible, unhampered by as few technical or ideological barriers as reasonably possible. Cheers, Urban ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [Dng] straw poll, non-free firmware for installers
On Wed, Jun 03, 2015 at 11:22:10PM -0400, Peter Olson wrote: [cut] Although I rank among the purists, I could go along with this idea: Two ISO/repo configurations. One which is free. The other which works if the first doesn't. Seconded. I myself am among the purists, and I need firmware-iwlwifi for my wifi adapter (although not having wifi working at install-time has usually not been that much of a burden, indeed). Anyway, I would prefer to see the standard Devuan install proposing only non-free software/firmware, and I might not object the provision of an alternative ISO which allows to pull down *exclusively* the firmware that is essential for the installation to continue successfully. But now that I am proposing this possibility, an easy question arises: what is a successful installation? The meaning of successful might vary a lot across users, and most of those same end users who would find it difficult to get along during install without non-free firmware could also label as unsuccessful a desktop installation in which X runs with VESA instead of the right (nonfree) driver which allows smooth 3D eyecandies to run What will we do then? Will we open another thread to discuss whether closed-source video card drivers should be proposed during install to avoid disappointing our beloved end users? Again, since it is very difficult to draw a line, I would prefer to draw the easiest and most principled one, that is to say: propose exclusively free software/firmware during installation. My2Cents KatolaZ -- [ Enzo Nicosia aka KatolaZ --- GLUG Catania -- Freaknet Medialab ] [ me [at] katolaz.homeunix.net -- http://katolaz.homeunix.net -- ] [ GNU/Linux User:#325780/ICQ UIN: #258332181/GPG key ID 0B5F062F ] [ Fingerprint: 8E59 D6AA 445E FDB4 A153 3D5A 5F20 B3AE 0B5F 062F ] ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [Dng] straw poll, non-free firmware for installers
On Thu, Jun 04, 2015 at 11:36:22AM +0100, David Harrison wrote: On 04/06/2015 02:52, dng-requ...@lists.dyne.org wrote: If it is the resounding will of the community to absolutely not ship the default installer with this approach, then I will withdraw from Devuan and someone else can take over the maintenance of the packages I've been working on. Daniel, you're doing a great job and I think your proposal is entirely reasonable. Please stay with us. Guys, I admit I have seen very good points on both sides (which are indeed just two slightly different aspects of the *same* side, that is trying to avoid non-free software to proliferate), but I genuinely don't undesrstand the either we all play as I like or I withdraw my own toys and go play alone elsewhere approach :( Peace KatolaZ -- [ Enzo Nicosia aka KatolaZ --- GLUG Catania -- Freaknet Medialab ] [ me [at] katolaz.homeunix.net -- http://katolaz.homeunix.net -- ] [ GNU/Linux User:#325780/ICQ UIN: #258332181/GPG key ID 0B5F062F ] [ Fingerprint: 8E59 D6AA 445E FDB4 A153 3D5A 5F20 B3AE 0B5F 062F ] ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [Dng] straw poll, non-free firmware for installers
On 04/06/15 13:23, KatolaZ wrote: On Thu, Jun 04, 2015 at 11:36:22AM +0100, David Harrison wrote: On 04/06/2015 02:52, dng-requ...@lists.dyne.org wrote: If it is the resounding will of the community to absolutely not ship the default installer with this approach, then I will withdraw from Devuan and someone else can take over the maintenance of the packages I've been working on. Daniel, you're doing a great job and I think your proposal is entirely reasonable. Please stay with us. Guys, I admit I have seen very good points on both sides (which are indeed just two slightly different aspects of the *same* side, that is trying to avoid non-free software to proliferate), but I genuinely don't undesrstand the either we all play as I like or I withdraw my own toys and go play alone elsewhere approach :( Peace KatolaZ Hello KatolaZ, I don't know Daniel and everybody else in this mailing list. So this is my own personal opinion. I don't think Daniel meant to force everybody to agree on his approach. It is good to have volunteer like him who provides the option for the users to express their opinions. However, I think it should be understandable that he definitely cannot implement all the requested combinations, especially the ones conflicting with his approach. That is most probably due to his limited volunteer time that he is willing to spend. So I think it is fair that he wrote to withdraw it and offered someone else to take over what he is currently working on if most users disagreed with his approach. Cheers, Anto ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [Dng] straw poll, non-free firmware for installers
Guys, free software is free software; it has never encompassed hardware. And firmware belongs to hardware; it looks like software but it is not, it is a configuration of hardware. It is in the kernel only for the purpose of being loaded into the device, not to be called. Distros who reject non-free firmware should also reject non-free hardware. Are you ready for that? Didier ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [Dng] straw poll, non-free firmware for installers
On Thu, Jun 04, 2015 at 03:01:21PM +1200, Daniel Reurich wrote: Hi Jim, On 04/06/15 14:34, James Powell wrote: I agree that there should be a scan ran to inform the system user that binary firmware is needed at boot, but likewise, if the system needs it, it should be an offered option at installation time also, just not offered by default as enabled. The user must at least select the option to install firmware such as this for example: -- [ ] Install optional kernel binary firmware - Kernel firmware is used by some modern devices to supplement EEPROMs and other mask roms normally included either with the driver internally, or on the device itself. Package (optional) : linux-kernel-firmware-nonfree-insert git pull date-noarch-.deb Notes: Selecting this option will not install any traditional non-free software packages (I.E. Adobe Flashplayer) on your system. This package is meant to only supplement the Linux kernel and it's drivers. Nothing else. Due to the fact certain kernel drivers lack this firmware internally and on chip, this package may be needed to gain full functionality of hardware such as VGA, Audio, SCSI, Networking, and other devices. If you were presented with a warning at boot that firmware needed to be loaded for your device(s), select and install this package, otherwise it is safe to continue without it. -- I was more thinking about scan of the hardware, and providing a report of all of the hardware requiring non-free firmware to be loaded. Potentially we would only need to pull in the specific firmware files required to make that work. Anyway the firmware-linux-nonfree package is a meta package that refers to all the non-free firmware packages and that includes a big bunch of stuff we won't want, like audio and video-card firmware. (We could allow for it to be selected later in task-select though). Our soul purpose is to only deal with firmware required for the installation process to complete - ie network cards for network installs etc.) Just a passing thought. As shown, the option is disabled by default, has documentational notes, and is counted as an optional kernel package, not actual software. Providing good information will server to educate the user is essential to helping them understanding why the question is put and what the implications are either way. The installer should use nonfree drivers that are essential to performing its duties, possibly informing the user that it has done so. It should also inform the user if nonfree drivers are essential to obtaining decent performance on his devices (such as 3D video), and install these on request. A naive user is not likely to realize how to do this on his own, and will instead conclude that devuan is useless. It would be nice (but perhaps too much work to be practical) if subsequent upgrades would informm the user when free drivers were to become available later for these devices. -- hendrik Good idea? Bad idea? Needs work? The cat ate the mouse? The dish ran away with the spoon? -Jim Definitely dish ran away with the spoon :D PS, best way to feed into this project is to raise an issue in our gitlab: https://git.devuan.org/d-i/firmware-reqd -- Daniel Reurich Centurion Computer Technology (2005) Ltd. 021 797 722 ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
