[Mageia-dev] Non-free firmwares in installer

[JA Magallón]

On Thu, 24 Mar 2011 11:18:03 +0100, Olivier Blin <mageia at blino.org> wrote:

> Wolfgang Bornath <molch.b at googlemail.com> writes:
> 
> >>> It can't be "free" and have "non-free" firmware... previously the
> >>> firmware only were on the Live CD's. I am not sure anything has been
> >>> changed in that regard (i.e. I didn't see the matter get discussed
> >>> yet).
> >>
> >> They were also on the PowerPack images, and they are installed
> >> automatically over a network install
> >
> > But to be installed via network you have to have a network connection
> > first, n'est-ce pas?
> > That's what this thread is about.
> 
> It is now also about "in which media should we include non-free
> packages?" :)
> 

First of all, I would like to state that my intention was just to ask about
the non-free blobs that free open source drivers need to work. But
the discussion seems to have extended to general non-free software...

From my point of view, including firmwares like intel, radeon, or linksys
ones is just adding more instances of what already is in the kernel, it
contains binary blobs also. I really was not thinking of things like nVidia
or Radeon drivers, or others, that could raise more problems.

I like the idea of an addtional iso with non-free drivers, but using two
medias could be problematic. Just a blind shot, if this can be done
easily in Linux: could we have two isos that could be combined into
one by the user itself at burn time, or when dumping to an USB flash drive ?
So from your point of view, you just offer a Free ISO for distribution,
and an additional driver pack, and the user just have to burn/carry one
media.

-- 
J.A. Magallon <jamagallon()ono!com>     \               Software is like sex:
                                         \         It's better when it's free