Hi folks, As promised, here's a quick summary of what was discussed at the Firmware discussion session in Heidelberg. This was not recorded on video, so I can't provide a link for that.
I've taken a copy of the Gobby notes too [1], and the nice folks at LWN even included a write-up in this week's issue [2]. (Non-free) Firmware in Debian ============================= Background ---------- Our users are finding problems with current common hardware - much of it depends on loadable firmware. Much (most?) of that firmware is non-free; we distribute what we can here in the non-free component of the Debian archive. This now means that more and more users end up enabling non-free just to be able to get at this firmware, which is a problem for many reasons. Depending on the type of the hardware involved, it's now common that users need this non-free firmware to be able to install Debian in the first place. For example, many common WiFi chipsets won't work without it, some common wired ethernet controllers too. This means that users are asking for non-free versions of our installation and live images to get basic functionality. An installer image might be ok (just find a large-enough image and all the needed packages will be included), but for a typical user wanting to try Debian on their laptop which has only WiFi for an internet connection this is not an option. We already provide *unofficial* non-free versions of installer and live images on cdimage.debian.org, but we've been deliberately not advertising these as well as the normal main images. This means that a lot of users don't find them. Alternatively, to go with the installer images, we also have some tar.gz/zip/cpio.gz bundles of all the non-free firmware packages so they can made available during installation, but again these are not well-advertised nor understood. Anecdotally, many of the DDs at DebConf did not even know about the existence of these unofficial images and bundles. There are a number of things not working well here. It's clear from discussion that there is no magic bullet to fix the issues we're facing, but we can definitely improve things in some concrete ways. 1. Split up non-free? --------------------- Yes - need to work out details. This is an idea that various folks have been considering for a while, and the ftpmasters have already said they're OK with. We need to work out the exact details of the split, at the very least. Currently suggested: * Split non-free into non-free-firmware, non-free-doc, non-free-other(?) * Same split, but use "/" as a separator for $reasons (non-free/firmware, non-free/doc, non-free-other(?), etc.) but I heard multiple other options too. Splitting seems to be generally accepted as a reasonable idea. This way, we'll be able to allow people to *just* use non-free firmware on their machines without adding extra pollution of non-free applications. But: what's a good level of split? While we're doing this work anyway, I'd personally like to have a non-free docs area too for things like GFDL docs and RFCs; others suggested a non-free-drivers (e.g. for the Nvidia binary drivers); somebody else suggested a total per-package split(!) to allow maximum resolution. That seems likely to cause more harm than good, so no! :-) We should move ahead with this split, and work out the best way to carve things up. Various tools that work on the archive (dak, debian-cd, ...) will need to be updated to match the new layout, obviously. *IMPORTANT*: We need to make sure that the messaging about this split is clear; just because we're splitting non-free firmware out of the default non-free area, that doesn't mean that we're suddenly endorsing it as a concept! 2. Include non-free-firmware on official media? ----------------------------------------------- NO. (I proposed this as a devil's advocate question.) The answer is a clear *NO!* Even if it's not enabled or shown to users by default, as a project we have decided not to include non-free stuff in our official media. Assuming we *did* decide to change that policy, we'd need a GR to change policy. Approximately nobody in the room thought this was a good plan, so we dropped the idea. 3. Advertise the "unofficial" firmware-included media better? ------------------------------------------------------------- Yes. It was generally agreed that this would be a good thing. Alongside the links to normal media in various places on our web sites, we should include links to the non-free media too, *with* some explanatory text describing the problems with non-free firmware and why it's not included by default. Also, similar better links to the firmware bundles will help. 4. Improve the non-free user experience in the installer? --------------------------------------------------------- Yes. There are a couple of places where an installer user may struggle to get things working, and we can make things better for them. 4a. Is firmware actually needed? If the kernel says it wants non-free firmware to go with a given device, the installer passes that message on to the user already. However, there are some devices (e.g. Realtek wired ethernet controllers) where the hardware in question may work just fine with loading firmware after all - there is already older/less-functional/less secure(?) firmware on the device. In these cases, it's unfortunately often impossible to know exactly whether or not the firmware is necessary - idiot vendors often use exactly the same PCI/USB IDs regardless of configuration here. :-( Given sufficient interest and effort, we might be able to build a database of hardware and work out exactly what's needed. But this is likely to be very difficult to maintain and prone to confusion. A better solution would be to describe exactly what the device is for each desired firmware blob and tell the user to go ahead and try without. If it appears functional, great! If not, come back again and try with the firmware. 4b. Give better instructions in the installer For those cases where firmware is needed, improve the documentation *in the installer* itself. Give the user more information about the hardware and what it's for. Give a quick link to a wiki(?) URL describing the problems inherent in non-free firmware so they can find out more, but (important!) don't overwhelm a new user with too much data here if they're just wanting to install their first Debian machine. If we have the right firmware on the media already, offer to install it (and make sure they understand it's non-free). Otherwise, give totally clear instructions on how to provide the firmware on a USB stick or point to the alternative non-free media (again, with information to help make them aware of the issues). 5. Anything else we can do to improve the situation? ---------------------------------------------------- Yes! Several ideas here, all needing work if they're to happen. 5a. Improve documentation about free hardware If a user's machine includes hardware that needs non-free firmware, maybe we could suggest known-good alternatives that would offer similar functionality without the problematic firmware. 5b. Post-installation, tell the user more On first boot after installation, check the installer logs for any firmware that was used. In each case, tell the user more about the hardware and alternatives. Maybe even offer some suggested text that the user could send to their computer's manufacturer/vendor to complain about the non-free firmware. Optionally, even add a debian.org role address in CC so that we get useful data about our users' experiences here too. In summary ---------- We can't fix the problem as a whole just yet, but we can certainly improve things. Firstly, we need to split up non-free and then we can do better things for our users stuck using devices that need non-free firmware. Please help if you're interested! [1] http://www.einval.com/~steve/talks/Debconf15-Firmware/gobby-notes.txt [2] http://lwn.net/Articles/655519/ or http://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/655519/37226424e831fa9d/ -- Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK. st...@einval.com Mature Sporty Personal More Innovation More Adult A Man in Dandism Powered Midship Specialty
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