Bug 119827

Summary:	Yast should download firmware for DVB TV Cards
Product:	[openSUSE] SUSE LINUX 10.0	Reporter:	ujkjui kiioi <raid517>
Component:	YaST2	Assignee:	Ladislav Slezák <lslezak>
Status:	RESOLVED DUPLICATE	QA Contact:	Klaus Kämpf <kkaempf>
Severity:	Enhancement
Priority:	P5 - None	CC:	aj, andreas.hanke
Version:	RC 1
Target Milestone:	---
Hardware:	i686
OS:	SUSE Other
Whiteboard:
Found By:	Beta-Customer	Services Priority:
Business Priority:		Blocker:	---
Marketing QA Status:	---	IT Deployment:	---

Description ujkjui kiioi 2005-10-03 00:06:39 UTC

Hi when I try to set up my DVB card (Wintv Nova-T:
[url=http://www.hauppauge.co.uk/pages/products/data_novatpci.html)]http://www.hauppauge.co.uk/pages/products/..._novatpci.html)[/url]
via Yast it tells me that I need to install firmware for the card. Unfortunately
the only way to get the firmware is to install Windows (which is just plain dumb
and I do not want to, or see why I should have to do it) then install the
software provided for the card from Technotrend (the Technotrend and  Hauppauge
versions of the card are the same), then copy a file from the installed program
directory (eg: C:\Program Files\TechnoTrend\TT-PCline budget) called
ttlcdacc.dll and then allow YAST to copy this file and then rename it and place
it in my /usr/lib/hotplug firmware folder. (Basically my card needs this
firmware in order to be able to work).

This is deeply frustrating - as this file is very hard to find on the web and
can't just be extracted from the the zip file that you can download from
technotrend (and ayway during the SuSe setup and install process this isn't
really very practical), so I can't see for the life of me why YAST doesn't just
offer to download the
firmware automatically from the Technotrend web site and extract the correct DVB
firmware for my card to the correct hotplug/firmware folder.

There is even a perl script that will allow Yast to do this supplied with the
original DVB utilities.

An example can be seen here:

[url=http://lists.suse.com/archive/suse-linux/2005-Aug/att-0622/get_dvb_firmware]http://lists.suse.com/archive/suse-linux/2...et_dvb_firmware[/url]

All Yast has to do is copy this firmware to it's prefered DVB/Firmware directory
location.

This will overcome another bug I found, in that even though (after something
like 6 hours of searching) I eventually found a compatable ttlcdacc.dll/firmware
version on the web, when I pointed YAST to it, it failed to recognise it. Indeed
even though I must have double clicked on it 50 odd times, YAST just kept saying
that it couldn't find any firmware - or that the .dll didn't exist. The official
script would resolve this, as it already does all of the renaming and correct
formating of the firmware and also it makes sure the correct version is
downloaded - so all YAST needs to do is copy it. (Providing that is that it can
see it and doesn't prentend to be blind by saying that it doesn't exist). 

On a side note I did eventually get my DVB card working, but only by downloading
a live Debian CD called Kanotix and copying the /usr/lib/hotplug/firmare folder
from there to my Suse 10 install - but it was over all a vastly complicated and
vastly frustrating and highy unsatisfactory process.

Can the developers fix YAST so that it can just use the official
get_dvb_firmware script?

Best regards,

GJ

PS I think that this bug probably affects all versions of SuSe 10 i686 and X86/64.

Comment 1 Ladislav Slezák 2005-10-04 14:08:16 UTC

It's not as simple as running a script, there is a legal problem.

Yast must show the license of the driver to the user and the license must be
accepted before downloading/installing firmware.

(BTW get_dvb_firmware script is part of kernel-source package.)

Comment 2 ujkjui kiioi 2005-10-04 15:28:35 UTC

Well I guess it's a case of which you view to be preferable? For YAST to show 
(Perhaps in a shell, or by any other means) a licience agreement, or for a 
user to be put to the impractical level of inconvienience to get the firmware 
as I described above. You should perhaps recall that a new user is unlikely to 
have a clue how to resolve this issue and is not going to have any idea what a 
get_dvb_firware script is and is going to have an even harder time trying to 
resolve the issue than did I. 

After all what is the point in having Yast only half do the job? It recognises 
my card and then warns me it won't work without firmware. (And then it asks 
for that firmware in the form of a non commonly avaiable .dll). Surely it is 
better to have it either not recognise my card as a TV card and not attempt to 
set it up (since in the end the only resolution was to set it up manually 
anyway) rather than allow it recognise the card and then have it capable of 
only half completing the install process? It just gives the impression that 
the install process for DVB cards fof this type hasn't been very well thought 
out and isn't very professionally done.

While it would still be vastly preferable I feel to have Yast capable of 
handling the install process for my card (and for as much of my hardware as 
possible) in a fully automatic way, surely a somewhat slightly better 
alternative would be for Yast to at least explain where to get the 
get_dvb_firmware script and perhaps if needed download the kernel sources and 
then ask the user for the dvb firmware in the correctly named format, rather 
than in a .dll format that largely requires Micosoft Windows to be installed 
in order to obtain it? Why should MS windows be a requirement for installing 
Suse?

Perhaps Yast should be redone anyway so that it is capable of showing licence 
agreements of this kind? This would at least open up new opportunities for 
automating hardware installs of exactly this nature.

GJ

Comment 3 Ladislav Slezák 2005-10-06 07:18:11 UTC

I agree that half-configured card is a bad solution.

TechnoTrend offers driver for download on their web. It's a zip archive.
(If the driver would be an .exe it would be almost impossible to do something.)

The archive also contains the license in a plain text file so in this case it
should not be a big problem to fully support this card.

Comment 4 ujkjui kiioi 2005-10-06 16:41:17 UTC

Thanks.

Comment 7 Andreas Jaeger 2005-11-02 09:52:26 UTC

I guess we should handle this the same way we handle some wlan drivers and graphics card - via a YOU patch that installs it.

Comment 8 Not Known 2006-01-07 15:13:36 UTC

I would like to point out that the REAL problem is the second bug that stops the whole installation. As a Windows user it's easy for me to extract the needed dll file and put it into action. The problem is that YaST doesn't recognise it! Of course the best way to handle the situation would be to solve the legal issues concerning the firmware download and extraction but in the mean time someone could fix the second bug to get the installation working.

Comment 9 Jiri Srain 2007-05-21 11:52:03 UTC

See

https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=130098#c12

for the legal comment. We can only tell user where to download the firmware from from legal reasons.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 130098 ***