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Bug#825916: installation-reports: Installing Debian with AMD/ATI Radeon graphics card does not go well



On Tue, 2016-05-31 at 12:34 +0200, scootergrisen wrote:
> Package: installation-reports
> Severity: important
> 
> When i install Debian on computer with AMD/ATI Radeon graphics card it does no
> go well.
> 
> After installation there is problem booting into the graphical desktop (GNOME)
> because it needs firmware-linux-nonfree and other packages to it seems.
>
> This is a big problem for a new user that wants to try Debian for the first
> time and have no idea why the system cant start the graphical desktop and what
> commands to type.
> 
> I would at least expect to be able to start the desktop into some low
> resolution mode like in Windows where you can get into the desktop even though
> you dont have the correct driver.

Yes, something should load a generic framebuffer driver if necessary.
I don't know what that would be though.

- I don't think it can be the kernel, as the kernel doesn't take that
  sort of policy decision
- It can't be the X or Wayland server, because they don't run as root
- I don't think it should be the display manager, because we have
  multiple implementations of that (gdm3, kdm, lightdm, ...)

Maybe a systemd unit/init script provided by an X/WL base package?

The other question is what the generic framebuffer driver would be, on
x86.  I just tried vga16fb, and gdm3 doesn't work on that - it seems to
be repeatedly starting an X server that quickly crashes.  efifb is
presumably preferable on UEFI systems.  uvesafb is another option but
requires a userland helper.

Ben.

> Then maybe the user is able to find information on the web/IRC to fix the
> problem.



-- 
Ben Hutchings
Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature.

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