Title: Handling non-free firmware in Debian Edu/Squeeze
Tags: english, debian edu
-Date: 2012-01-27 16:00
+Date: 2012-01-27 23:30
-<p>With non-free hardware, one need non-free firmware. This is a sad
-fact of todays computers. In the next version of
-<a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based on
-Squeeze, we provide several scripts to make this easier to handle.
-The common use case I run into is laptops with wireless network cards
-needing non-free firmware, but there are other situations too.</p>
+<p>With some computer hardware, one need non-free firmware blobs.
+This is the sad fact of todays computers. In the next version of
+<a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> 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.</p>
-<p>First and foremost, we provide ISO images for DVD and CD with all
-firmware packages in Debian included, to ensure debian-installer find
-and can install it during installation. This take care firmware for
-network devices used by the installer when installing from from local
-media.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
-<p>Next, one might need other firmware blobs for non-network devices.
-For these we provide a script
+<p>For non-network devices, we provide the script
<tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/auto-addfirmware</tt> which
-search through the dmesg output for requests for extra firmware, look
-up the firmware files in the Contents-ARCH.gz files available in the
-package repository, and install the packages providing the requested
-firmware file(s). I have proposed to do something similar in
-debian-installer (BTS report
+search through the <tt>dmesg</tt> 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
<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">#655507</a>), to allow PXE
-installs of Debian to handle firmware installation with less manual
-labour.</p>
+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.</p>
<p>Debian Edu provide PXE installation of Debian out of the box, and
because some machines need firmware to get their network cards
-working, the initrd some times need extra firmware included to be able
-to install at all. To fill the PXE installation initrd with extra
-firmware, the
+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
<tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/pxe-addfirmware</tt> script is
-provided.</p>
+provided. Again, just run it as root on the command line to fill the
+PXE initrd with firmware packages.</p>
<p>Last, some LTSP clients might also need firmware to get their
network cards working. For this,
<tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/ltsp-addfirmware</tt> is
-provided to update the LTSP initrd with firmware blobs.</p>
+provided to update the LTSP initrd with firmware blobs. It is used
+the same way as the other firmware related tools.</p>
-<p>At the moment, we do not run any of these during installation, to
-make the local administrator aware that they are using hardware that
-need non-free files to function. We do not know if this is acceptable
-to the administrator or not, and thus leave it as their choice to add
-firmware or not.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
<p>We plan to release beta3 this weekend. You might want to give it a
try.</p>
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