Restricted modules installed for everyone? (Was: Re: kernel^W linux upgrade via apt)

Daniel Robitaille robitaille at gmail.com
Fri Jan 7 06:14:18 UTC 2005


> ogra at monkey:/mnt/rohrwerk $ apt-cache show linux-686
> Package: linux-686
> Priority: optional
> Section: restricted/base
> Depends: linux-image-686, linux-restricted-modules-686

I didn't realized until tonight that the large majority of Ubuntu
users  will have linux-xxx installed, which will then install on some
archtecture linux-restricted-modules-xxx, both from the non-free
restricted repository; at least that seems to be the default
installation if I understand it right.

And for example, the description of linux-restricted-modules-386 goes as follow:

>Description: Non-free Linux 2.6.8.1 modules on 386
> This package provides restricted modules for Linux version 2.6.8.1 on
>
> Currently the following modules are included:
> - madwifi (Atheros)
>  - fglrx (ATI)
>  - nvidia

Anyone can do a guess-estimate of the percentage of Ubuntu users
actually needing these modules to have a working computer? (is it a
majority or a minority?)

While I can guess that from a technical point of view it's probably
the easier way of doing it, I find that from a more ideological point
of view  it is a bit disturbing (maybe disturbing is a too strong of a
word...) that these non-free modules are installed by default for
everyone on some architectures.  Is there a way to install them (maybe
via a install-time setting/question) only for the users actually
needing them to try to minimize the number of non-free packages on a
typical default ubuntu installation?




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