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Bugzilla – Full Text Bug Listing |
| Summary: | YaST Modem module needs an update due to non-GPL kernel modules removal | ||
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| Product: | [openSUSE] SUSE Linux 10.1 | Reporter: | Forgotten User 55iwwMllzz <forgotten_55iwwMllzz> |
| Component: | YaST2 | Assignee: | Michal Zugec <mzugec> |
| Status: | RESOLVED DUPLICATE | QA Contact: | Klaus Kämpf <kkaempf> |
| Severity: | Major | ||
| Priority: | P5 - None | CC: | fmfischer, forgotten_mbQyAD5r4K, jens.herden, suse-beta |
| Version: | Beta 4 | ||
| Target Milestone: | --- | ||
| Hardware: | i386 | ||
| OS: | Other | ||
| Whiteboard: | |||
| Found By: | Beta-Customer | Services Priority: | |
| Business Priority: | Blocker: | --- | |
| Marketing QA Status: | --- | IT Deployment: | --- |
I think it would be important that someone paid attention to this bug because Smartlink based modems are the most common type of modems in laptops built since 2003. Yes. Bug 151148 has some text and wiki links that we could use as an inspiration. bug 155723 addresses a similar issue, only difference: the ndiswrapper module, quite important for a lot of contemporary wlan cards (especially with non-Intel-CPUs) has beed dropped from the distro despite it IS a GPL kernel module. In Beta8, when trying to configure a Smartlink-based modem, YaST's Modem module still displays the dialog:
«These packages need to be installed:
smartlink-softmodem»
Of course, since no 'smartlink-softmodem' package exists, it fails.
This dialog should be replaced by another one containg a short text explaining that the user first needs to install the Smartlink driver. And, if no other easier way of installing this driver is provided, it should at least include the Smartlink Linux driver page address: http://www.smlink.com/content.aspx?id=135 (of course, if the only mean of accessing the Internet is the modem, the user is stuck; but that is the Novell's idea of providing a user-friendly product...)
In RC3 my smartlink modem was detected correctly. I went into Yast to configure it and I was able to do so without any error message! I think it is very bad to pretend that LS10.1 can configure a modem that in fact is not supported at all. Please provide at least a message box. It seems that SuSE decided to include the smartlink driver on the Addon-BiArch.iso (common sense prevailed). But as Jens Herden pointed out, a problem still remains: YaST's Modem module doesn't warn the user that in order to use the modem he has to install the driver. As I wrote on the description of this bug, this is BAD because most users will feel completely lost. Even for experienced users, sometimes it is not easy to find out that modems have a Smartlink chip.
On previous versions of SuSE, if YaST's Modem module detected that the modem had a Smartlink chip, it asked the user if she wanted to install the driver. I don't know if SuSE wants to keep this behavior in the retail version. Anyway, a simple message box like:
«This modem has a Smartlink chip. You may proceed with the configuration
but you will need to install its driver before you are able to use the
modem. You can find the driver in the Add-On CD with non-OSS Software.»
would be helpful for thousands of users whose laptops come with this type of modems.
(In reply to comment #6) > It seems that SuSE decided to include the smartlink driver on the > Addon-BiArch.iso (common sense prevailed). This seems not to be true in RC3! There is only the kernel module slusb in the package and not slamr! My understanding is that slusb is for modems connected via USB only. That means even if experienced user get the packages installed from the add-on cd they will not be able to use their modem. And they will have a hard time to find out why. (In reply to comment #7) > This seems not to be true in RC3! > There is only the kernel module slusb in the package and not slamr! Yes, you are right. Only the 'slusb.ko' is included in the package. Honestly I don't understand the criteria behind providing slusb.ko and removing slamr.ko... The slamr.ko contains a binary only blob, while slusb.ko is fully opensource. That's not an excuse for not providing a single line of warning. YaST pretends it *can* configure the modem, after some digging around I even found smartlink-softmodem(-kmp-...) packages but was still quite lost as there is no slamr.ko in them. Only after reading the hint in bug 181174 I realised I need to recompile the package myself with some magic options. No problem, I'll do. But it's *YaST* that should have given me this hint, not a random helpful user in INVALID-and-REOPEN bug in bugzilla who doesn't have to care about someone else problems with this most fucked up Suse distro since ages. *** Bug 181174 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. *** Reassigning to the new maintainer of yast2-network. Mark as duplicate about smartlink modem detection *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 94155 *** |
Now with the polemical removal of non-GPL kernel modules from the distribution and SuSE FTP site, the YaST Modem module needs some small changes. So far, when YaST detected a modem with a Smartlink chip and the smartlink packages were not installed, it asked the user if she wanted to install the driver packages. In Beta4 it still behaves this way. The problem is that the Smartlink packages are not available in the distribution anymore. What can be done: OPTION 1 YaST stops offering to configure modems with Smartlink chips. This is BAD because most users will feel completly lost. Even for experienced users, sometimes it is not easy to find out that modems have a Smartlink chip. For example, a lspci -v in my laptop shows: 00:1f.6 Modem: Intel Corporation 82801CA/CAM AC'97 Modem Controller (rev 02) (prog-if 00 [Generic]) Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems Toshiba Satellite 1110 Z15 internal Modem Flags: medium devsel, IRQ 11 I/O ports at ca00 [size=256] I/O ports at c980 [size=128] As you can see, not a single reference to Smartlink. OPTION 2 YaST continues to be able to configure modems with Smartlink chip, but when the driver is not installed it warns the user that she first needs to install the driver. It can optionally include the text: "For further information please read the Release Notes" (and the "Release Notes" string should be a link to file://path-to-releasenotes_file)