On Thu, 4 Jun 2015 16:08:07 +0100
KatolaZ <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.

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