The problem with Free DVD

[Lebarhon]

Hello,

When I tried Mageia beta and RC on my old laptop (Dell Inspiron 5150), they worked fine; but I didn't realize that these DVD included proprietary firmware. When I installed Mageia1 DVD, with only Free software inside, Internet couldn't be connected, neither by wire (Broadcom BCM 4401) nor by Wifi (Ralink RT73). The Mageia Wiki says that after installing the DVD, you can download the Nonfree packages, of course; except for the network packages !
To fetch the missing packages on Internet with another PC, and then to copy and install them on the laptop isn't simple for me. I succeeded, but it took me several hours !

I don't understand the Mageia policy, why only Free software on the DVD ? You can say: It doesn't work, but it's Free ! I would prefer : It's not Free, but it works !

This rule of no nonfree sofware inside the DVD shouldn't apply to the internet connection.

[obgr_seneca]

That's a matter of philosophy and there were quite some discussions about this.

FYI with their newest release Debian has changed to the same policy.

Oliver

[Lebarhon]

Every one knows that Debian is for geeks, so they have a philosophy that fits them.
I thought Mageia was for "people" newbies included. In such a distribution, you insert the DVD and click on "Install", that all. It was the goal of the Powerpack. When you only have a light message that read "Connection failed" how a newby can :
- know which packages are missing
- where to find them, which depository
- how to install them by hand
- ....
This middle age and fundamentalist philosophy doesn't suit me.

[dubigrasu]

Yep, it's a show stopper, a pretty big one for a newbie and not only.
I mean you download the DVD at work, take it home to your wireless connection, but hey! you can't use it.
The drivers needed for that are on the internet, that you can't access because you don't have the needed drivers for that which are on the internet that you can't access because the drivers....argh!
Logical and absurd at the same time, Mister Spock, come and explain this please.

If you know what needs to be installed that's good and gives you some options, but if you don't, you can only throw the DVD in the trashcan and relax, knowing that in the Debian camp things are the same and you're not alone in this absurdity.

The score after final round:
Philosophy: 1
Common sense: 0

[Germ]

It's not just 'Philosophy'. A lot of things can not be redistributed due to licensing. It's illegal.

Mageia is all volunteers and community driven. There are no corporate dollars/euros. Will you pay the licensing fees?

Yea, it's a big pain sometimes but not insurmountable.

[dubigrasu]

I think it's a matter of cold feet, I've seen this weirdness only on Mandriva and Suse, and sadly for a newbie it is unsurmountable.

[isadora]

My wireless easily configured, after i plugged in wired just to get the needed packages.
Actually, i have got used to this procedure through the years.

[dubigrasu]

That's the happy version but wireless may be the only connection available and then you're really stuck.
Yes, there are options to get out of this, but not if you're a newbie.

[obgr_seneca]

Well....

I already wrote a reply once but somehow it's disappeared, so I try to rewrite it...

First: I don't think it's apropriate to call other people's thoughts about Free Software "middle age" or fundamentalist". You might not agree, but I would really like to have a friendly discussion style here...

Second: Sure: Mageia is about people, but it's also about suporting the ideas and philosophies of OpenSource. That's why we do provide the 100% OpenSource DVD which makes it easy for anyone to redistribute it.
Sure, we could have done it in a better way - for example the "geek" system Debian (which is imho one of the best and most used server systems all over the world) provides an archive you can put on a USB stick, and when this stick is present at installation time, the firmware, drivers and so on in this archive will be installed if needed.
But, we are very young, there's much to improve and:
Helping in those improvements is more productive then just telling us, what is wrong...

Third: Nowadays I think most newbies do install the live-cds since that is, what most other distros - especially the ones with the many "U"s in their name - provide (and I personally wouldn't want to use).

So, please give us some (useful) hints, how to improve the situation.

Oliver

[Lebarhon]

First: I didn't attempt to be unfriendly, if so, I am sorry.

Second: May be Debian is the best server system in the world, but I do'nt care because I don't need such a system, I just need an OS simple and userfriendly because I am not an IT technician. You want to be told what is wrong, well it is wrong when you install a DVD and you can't be connected to the Internet either by wire or by wifi because free drivers don't exist. It is wrong when ideology is placed before efficiency, and above all for a very young distribution because people are looking at it, expecting that it will be finally The distro, the one which is plug and play.

Third: The live-cds I know aren't pure free sofware, that is the reason of their success. What about the Mageia ones? I didn't find, if they include proprietary software, why what is possible for the live-cd is impossible for the DVD ?
In the other hand, if live-cd include proprietary software, I will use them, but do these cd have the same kernel flavor that the DVD ?

[peter1]

There are many distribution that have all stuff included without braking any laws. Linux Mint have a solution for a USA and Japan cd/DVD and one for the rest of the world.

All included:
The full-featured standard version
USA and Japan:
A version which fits on a CD, without multimedia support and extra applications. For magazines, companies and distributors in the USA, Japan and countries where the legislation allows patents to apply to software and distribution of restricted technologies may require the acquisition of 3rd party licenses.

I am sure Mageia could have some similar solution to.
I think PCLinuxOS have all included to. And its based in TEXAS USA.

[Lebarhon]

Yes, PCLinuxOS is all included and don't charge anything, so money isn't the problem, the choice of free DVD is purely a matter of philosophy.

[samtuke]

Sure: Mageia is about people, but it's also about suporting the ideas and philosophies of OpenSource. That's why we do provide the 100% OpenSource DVD which makes it easy for anyone to redistribute it.

Exactly, and personally I'm very glad that this is the case. No Free Software would exist if communities like this one had in the past given away their user's rights to use, study, share and improve the software they developed.

Whether a distro is Free or not also has major implications for who can install it, like community centres that recycle computers and install GNU/Linux on them. Mageia would be of no use to me if it turned a blind eye to these issues.

Sure, we could have done it in a better way - for example the "geek" system Debian (which is imho one of the best and most used server systems all over the world)

Indeed. How many of the user friendly and freedom unfriendly distros rely on solid Free Software like Debian to add their bells and whistles to? Mageia and Mandriva and PCLinuxOS for three - they're all based on Fedora.

There are many distribution that have all stuff included without braking any laws. Linux Mint have a solution for a USA and Japan cd/DVD and one for the rest of the world.

Certainly many distributions sell out their user's rights for short term wins. There have always been distributions like this, and so long as there are enough distros which continue to battle for quality whilst also respecting user rights, they hopefully wont do a huge amount of harm to the wider community.

I think PCLinuxOS have all included to. And its based in TEXAS USA.

PCLinuxOS puts legal and philosophical issues second. This is, in my view, an irresponsible attitude which they can only afford to have because of the size and nature of the project.

Free Software is all about the philosophy. If you remove the philosophy what do you have, and what will you have in future?

If you start with freedom, features will follow, but when you start with features, freedom rarely ensues.

[dubigrasu]

Free Software is all about the philosophy. If you remove the philosophy what do you have...?

A distro that you can actually use?

[isadora]

Free Software is all about the philosophy. If you remove the philosophy what do you have...?

A distro that you can actually use?

In this world we all know very well, where these kind of philosopies can lead to.

I, for one, don't want to mention the name.

[peter1]

You can have a balance between free software and non free software. In Ubuntu you can install Ubuntu restricted extras:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu-restricted-extras

Then the Libdvd package:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libdvdcss

And all is very legal to.

After that it can cope with anything a normal computer user need. And it's not to difficult even for a new Linux user.
But dont make it to difficult, after all it's about 320 Linux distributions to chose. So Mageia is not unique.

If you not want to include all thats fine. But make it easy for user to recive necessary packages.

[dubigrasu]

Installing non-free software in not a problem in Mageia, we have almost everything we need in the repos.
The point is that if you need some drivers to connect you to the Internet, those are missing from the Install DVD because of the Free software philosophy.

It is not about Free Software being something wrong. But following it blindly could lead to absurd situation.
It's me standing on this side of the river asking:
- Hey, I can't swim, how can I get to the other side of the river?
- Very easy, you can get the boat and go there.
- Excellent, where is the boat?
- Er...there is a slight problem, because of the Free Boating philosophy we had to move the boat to the other side.

I understand that you had to strip the DVD from any "illegal" codecs&stuff, but can't you make an exception (or find a clever workaround) for this weird situation?

[peter1]

Internet connection is essential. So it must works. If it to much religion/philophosy or what you want to call it, for include drivers for that "non geeks" will just chose another distribution.
I guess it be a subject in the coming "real" reviews to. Like in this page:
http://www.linuxbsdos.com/
So far I have only read some articles about Mageia but they dont go so deep in how it works. Anyway I hope the Mageia developers will create a good solution in the long run that suits most users.

[ahmad]

Hello,

When I tried Mageia beta and RC on my old laptop (Dell Inspiron 5150), they worked fine; but I didn't realize that these DVD included proprietary firmware. When I installed Mageia1 DVD, with only Free software inside, Internet couldn't be connected, neither by wire (Broadcom BCM 4401) nor by Wifi (Ralink RT73). The Mageia Wiki says that after installing the DVD, you can download the Nonfree packages, of course; except for the network packages !
To fetch the missing packages on Internet with another PC, and then to copy and install them on the laptop isn't simple for me. I succeeded, but it took me several hours !

I don't understand the Mageia policy, why only Free software on the DVD ? You can say: It doesn't work, but it's Free ! I would prefer : It's not Free, but it works !

This rule of no nonfree sofware inside the DVD shouldn't apply to the internet connection.

Please file a bug report and include the output of 'lspcidrake -v' from any working Mageia (or Mandriva) system. (However it's indeed a corner case that both a user's wire and wireless hardware require firmware to work....).

FWIW, the rule is a rule, the DVD doesn't have any nonfree software; ideally the Live CD's have some firmware, but unfortunately not for Mageia 1.

Also here's a suggestion about having a separate "firmware/nonfree" CD ISO that you can add as an additional/external source during the installation.

[dubigrasu]

Also here's a suggestion about having a separate "firmware/nonfree" CD ISO that you can add as an additional/external source during the installation.

Ah, that would be great, what I'm saying, this is excellent. But with a clear download link, next to the Free DVD and the Livecd, not buried somewhere unknown.
It could be also the USB method obgr_seneca was talking about earlier.
I just hope you guys will remember to do that when the Mageia 2 comes out, or even sooner.

[ahmad]

Also here's a suggestion about having a separate "firmware/nonfree" CD ISO that you can add as an additional/external source during the installation.

Ah, that would be great, what I'm saying, this is excellent. But with a clear download link, next to the Free DVD and the Livecd, not buried somewhere unknown.
It could be also the USB method obgr_seneca was talking about earlier.
I just hope you guys will remember to do that when the Mageia 2 comes out, or even sooner.

You can follow the progress of that issue: https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=523

[dubigrasu]

You can follow the progress of that issue: https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=523

Not much of a progress I'm afraid.
Tumbleweeds all over the place...

[pmithrandir]

Hi,

There is something I don't understand in some answer.

Why do you say it's illegal ?
I think it's exactly what the live CD install do, installing a computer with non free software.

As I already said before, for this non sence of "total free" distribution, people get sucks by there system, and they never try again.

People don't want to be computer analyst to use a computer. We have a job because we are trained to do that. And personnaly, whan I come back home, It's not to work on my personnal computer.

Do the count :
- How many people do you loose because they can't install correctly the system.
- How many user do you have in coutry with law issues.

If the USA is your main market, I will say ok, you are right.
Otherwise, I think mageia is doing the same mistakes than mandriva, forget that people are not geek, and that even for geek, it's not so funny to fight with the computer...

[varrin]

I'm glad I was pointed to this thread, and especially the bug report linked a couple messages above. I added my $.02 to the bug report which I'll repeat here with the hope of breathing some life into this problem before "2" gets too too far along:

It appears from the discussion here and at bug #66 that the idea would be to
allow either or (online and/or iso). That (or a version of it) would be
required to fix this problem, but this requires an additional step: decide how
to provide non free software during the install process. Use an additional iso
or include it in some existing iso(s)?

I submit that it would be better to, instead of making an additional *separate*
ISO for non free software, to make an additional *complete* ISO ala Powerpack.

The arguments above (and on the forum in several threads) about free software
v.s. usability are not trivial. Both are important and both require solutions
that work for real users. Count this as my vote for a single DVD (or one per
architecture) that includes sufficient non free drivers (network, video, etc.)
to get as many systems as possible started.

I'm happy to download separate media (ala Powerpack) or to click "yes I intend
to do that", thereby turning the all free DVD into an almost all free DVD. I'm
not happy to fish around for separate installation media, and it's an absolute
show stopper to have to get network drivers online when you can't get online
due to lack of network drivers (result = *ZERO* free software from Mageia being
used).

V-

[dubigrasu]

it's an absolute show stopper to have to get network drivers online when you can't get online
due to lack of network drivers

Ha, usability...that's is a tabu word in the free software camp. They climb podiums and give impressive speeches about the wonders of free software and how we should embrace it, but I bet they have their PC stuffed with restricted codecs and drivers.

Don't bother, really. You wasted time posting here and at bugzilla, time you better spend for some other cause with real chances of succeeding.
No one "up there" is listening to you. And if they do they'll give you nonsense like: "This is not a necessity"
You read it above; the rule is a rule.
Sooner or later you'll learn that it doesn't matter what you need, It is already decided for you what you need.

We have a saying here, something like: Dogs are barking, the bear doesn't give a crap.
Community driven distro my back...