Bug#989863: debian-installer: Firmware problems in bullseye
On Sat, 24 Jul 2021 at 09:05:59 +0200, Cyril Brulebois wrote:
> If we were to go the “(almost) all in” route, it might make sense to
> either blacklist (some of) those, or to whitelist the known-ok ones,
> which would require some monitoring of new additions over time (which
> dillon, behind d-i.debian.org, could help us with).
As an 80% solution, would it be feasible to have the officially-unofficial
media with firmware install the firmware-linux metapackage by default,
or at least install it if a desktop task was chosen?
firmware-linux pulls in firmware-amd-graphics and firmware-misc-nonfree
(which has the Nvidia firmware), and I think its rules for inclusion
imply not needing an EULA or other special license-acceptance by the
user. If I understand correctly, the equivalent packages are installed
by default in many distros that are less purist about being 100% Free
Software than we are.
I think the hierarchy of importance for installing things *from d-i*
goes something like this:
- essential boot stuff like raspi-firmware, without which the installed
system is completely unusable on that hardware
(but I don't think it's possible to start d-i on Raspberry Pi without
providing the equivalent of raspi-firmware out-of-band somehow anyway)
- graphics devices: nobody wants a blank screen, and new users will be
much more able to install extra packages later if they can at least get
into a working GUI
- network devices: networking makes it much easier to install more
firmware, but if you have a working GUI and no networking, you can at
least read documentation, install more firmware from non-netinst media,
or get a list of packages to download onto a USB stick on another machine
- audio and accessibility devices: essential for users who need those
particular accessibility measures (screen readers, in the case of audio),
but can be set up later from the installed system for most users
- everything else (in particular firmware-ivtv and
firmware-microbit-python are not essential to anyone's use of the
system as a whole, only their use of specific devices)
smcv
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