Re: non-free firmware and d-i
> So there are cases of:
> * CD-ROM drives needing firmware somewhere along the path (IDE/SATA
> controller, drive itself perhaps?, more stuff...)
If you have a cdrom behind a firmware requiring scsi controller. Not so
likely, but not completely impossible. I have never seen
cdrom drives requiring firmware download. CDROM drives on a RAID
controller may be problematic as well (and in some cases unsupported, eg
cdrom drives on DAC960).
> * hard disks requiring firmwhare somewhere along the same path
Most likely the controller, not the drives.
> * network interface cards requiring firmware.
> * USB too?
>
USB controllers requiring firmware only exist in the embedded world (Eg.
some cypress controllers). They are not UHCI/OHCI/EHCI and thus unused
in the PC world, as microsoft requires UCHI/OHCI (and EHCI for
highspeed) compliancy for the windows compatibility logo. (which is
important enough for PC HW manufacturers).
> * Stop providing driver disk images, requring people to create them
> themselves by copying .udeb files onto a physical floppy disk or
> cdrom (Rationale: this will help people understand what's really going
> on, rather than have them assume that the driver disk image is
> something very special which it isn't. I know I thought so before you
> just told me on IRC that they only contained udebs...)
cpio or tar archives would be prefereable to udebs as they don't require
magic to create.
L & L
p2.
--
Goa is a state of mind
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