Bug#694777: Wheezy Beta4 installs but X server unusable

[Brian Potkin <claremont102@gmail.com>]

On Sat 01 Dec 2012 at 12:56:08 -0500, Lou Poppler wrote:

> I understand why the modules are non-free, and why they won't be installed
> automatically any more.  But firmware for video cards is still the
> installer's business, and probably is installed automatically still,
> if it is found in the mainline debian depositories, i.e. not non-free.
> 
> The installer is indeed the logical place from a user's point of view,
> to find out about what software to install on a new system.
> I repeat my suggestion at least to mention http://wiki.debian.org/AtiHowTo
> if the user has one of those unfortunate cards mentioned there.
> 
> This target machine is a newly installed Windows7 computer at my wife's
> office; she is a professor in a small scientific department at a small
> university; the university's IT department gave their blessing to install
> a dual-boot linux setup, with the understanding that they would provide
> no support for the linux part.  I rarely see her office, and probably will
> not sit at this computer very often.
> 
> So, please imagine if the workaround bugfix were installed, leaving the
> machine running degraded video without its firmware *under linux*, but
> running full-featured video under its Windows7 installation.
> Imagine I have walked away, thinking "OK, it works" and mostly only visit
> the machine via SSH in the future.  Imagine my wife and her colleagues
> over time seeing that the machine looks much better under Windows than it
> does under linux.  It seems like bad linux evangelism.

The radeon driver does appear to be problematic at times:

   http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2012/09/msg00172.html

The remainder of the thread is also worth a read. This also caught my
eye:

   http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2012/09/msg00357.html

I've tried to read

   http://d-i.debian.org/manual/en.i386/ch02s02.html

and

   http://d-i.debian.org/manual/en.i386/ch06s04.html

from a new user's perspective. There is nothing there, as far as I can
see, which says only missing firmware for network cards will be attended
to at that stage of the installation. In fact the impression is given
that firmware.tar.gz is the cure-all. Even this excellent page

http://raphaelhertzog.com/2011/03/14/missing-firmware-in-debian-learn-how-to-deal-with-the-problem/

doesn't make it clear that non-free firmware detection in D-I is for
network hardware only.

Irrespective of anything else which could be done, there is a case for
the Manual to reflect this situation and to offer some advice for
missing firmware detection post-installation.