With some computer hardware, one need non-free firmware blobs. +This is the sad fact of todays computers. In the next version of +Debian Edu / Skolelinux based +on Squeeze, we provide several scripts and modifications to make +firmware blobs easier to handle. The common use case I run into is a +laptop with a wireless network card requiring non-free firmware to +work, but there are other use cases as well.
+ +First and foremost, Debian Edu provide ISO images for DVD and CD +with all firmware packages in the Debian sections main and non-free +included, to ensure debian-installer find and can install all of them +during installation. This take care firmware for network devices used +by the installer when installing from from local media. But for +example multimedia devices are not activated in the installer and are +not taken care of by this.
+ +For non-network devices, we provide the script +/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/auto-addfirmware which +search through the dmesg output for drivers requesting extra +firmware. The firmware file name is looked up in the Contents-ARCH.gz +file available in the package repository, and the packages providing +the requested firmware file(s) is installed. I have proposed to do +something similar in debian-installer (BTS report +#655507), to allow PXE +installs of Debian to handle firmware installation better. Run the +script as root from the command line to fetch and install the needed +firmware packages.
+ +Debian Edu provide PXE installation of Debian out of the box, and +because some machines need firmware to get their network cards +working, the installation initrd some times need extra firmware +included to be able to install at all. To fill the PXE installation +initrd with extra firmware, the +/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/pxe-addfirmware script is +provided. Again, just run it as root on the command line to fill the +PXE initrd with firmware packages.
+ +Last, some LTSP clients might also need firmware to get their +network cards working. For this, +/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/ltsp-addfirmware is +provided to update the LTSP initrd with firmware blobs. It is used +the same way as the other firmware related tools.
+ +At the moment, we do not run any of these during installation. We +do not know if this is acceptable for the local administrator to use +non-free software, and it is their choice.
+ +We plan to release beta3 this weekend. You might want to give it a +try.
+ +