RFTesters: freed-ora repo config packages

[Jesús Franco]

On Sun, Dec 05, 2010 at 11:03:25PM -0200, Alexandre Oliva wrote:
> I moved the freed-ora packages to stable in F-1[2345], and wrote up
> instructions to go Free(d-ora) in the safest way I could think of.
> Testing, comments and improvements are welcome: http://ur1.ca/2icp4
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> 
> -- 
> Alexandre Oliva, freedom fighter    http://FSFLA.org/~lxoliva/

First at all, thanks again for the effort you are putting on to
simplify the jump to freedom for all Fedora users.

Reading your instructions, i think the first step, as i've shared in
fedora, and linuxlibre µgroups of identi.ca, it's not the
try-fail-tryagain-fail-again-loop somewhat confusing for newbies.

Let's keep it simple, and easier to test for everybody able to run a
single command without feeling scared.

Upgrade to Freedom! Step 1, looks like this:

=====================================================
rpm -i http://is.gd/iiYtd && yum install kernel-libre
=====================================================

Yeah, if you care about a misconfigured url, try it with wget --spider

It's a *must* installing kernel-libre before freed-ora-freedom because
the kernel-packages can't be removed previous to using
kernel-libre. Also, it's not necessary import previously the GPG key
before installing freed-ora-release.rpm because when you install
kernel-libre, it downloads the right GPG key and asks you to confirm
before accepting it.

And it's pretty more satisfying experiencing your first success, just
at your first step in a process, than facing you with lot of ugly
lists of errors. If you let someone the satisfaction of doing well at
the first stages of a process, he/she will found more confident to
find the next steps easier to confront. 

Step two, rebooting and running kernel-libre:

As i've stated before, let's keep it simple and not prone to errors
for a single typo. So, maybe the grubby line could be included in
%post script section of kernel-libre installation, but it leads you to
not-so-necessary dependencies. Maybe a sed or an awk script could do
the work without this.

I like GUI, so, i used bootconf, and it's pretty easier even for a
single luser of gui's like me, choosing exactly the kernel i want:
kernel-libre. I think this is better than risking a user without a
clue than what grubby does, fearing what the heck exactly does that.


Step three, detect and remove, until you can say to others:
=====================================================
"I'm upgraded to freedom! do you? Try it, it's easy!"
=====================================================

yum install freed-ora-freedom

I've removed the nonfree reaming packages of my system, but with rpm,
because freed-ora-freedom was not included in freed-ora repo yet, but
i've tested the yum command now (removing previously rpm install
package, and reinstalling again).

rpm -i http://is.gd/ijjjE ; again, try it with wget --spider

this way, you can remove the blob packages markes shamelessly with
free licenses, with a single line (i think): 

yum remove *-firmware microcode_ctl kernel.i686 perf-*

This would remove a bunch of packages linked to dependant of old
kernel, as gcc. But after removing it (and taking note of which i'd
need to reinstall, and see what happen then), and reinstalling
freed-ora-freedom, i happily noticed than reinstalling the gcc and
other apps with "kernel" dependencies, since kernel-libre is providing
it already, it don't install kernel from fedora repo, but freed-ora
one. Even installing kernel-libre-headers and kernel-libre-devel.

After this success, if a package links to kernel non free, or you try
to manually install kernel.i686 (the packaged by Fedora one), it
denounces the conflict with freed-ora-freedom.

I'd found than you can add several exclude options to /etc/yum.conf
file, i've used to exclude just mono-* crap, but i tried if i could
add with exclude=kernel.i686 to my personal list of banned packages.

And it worked pretty fine, so, i think should be added to the %post
section of freed-ora-freedom.rpm the easy command:

echo exclude=kernel.i686 >> /etc/yum.conf

this way, if you try by hanb: yum install kernel

it doesn't complains anymore about conflicts and so, it simply says
than you have kernel-libre installed and there is nothing else to do. 

As i've said before, it would be even easier (and "marketable") if all
the blobby crap, could be removed just asking to yum than you want
install freed-ora-freedom, removing the crap, and avoiding at all next
attempts to do schizoid attempts of install non-free kernel packages,
without removing your own freedom ;)

In solidarity

-- 
Jesús E. Franco Mtz.
http://identi.ca/tzk