Hi
I just completed a preliminary survey [1] about graphical
debian-installer usability on PPC machines and it turned out that there
are two distinct kinds of issues that currently block PPC users from
using the g-i.
*Graphical issues: PPC testers always report crashes when hw
acceleration iss enabled, but luckily such crashes can be easily avoided
by disabling hardware acceleration and chip-specific modules, or better
by removing gfxdrivers them from the filesystem.
So, even if not optimal, disabling hw acceleration does the trick and we
can live well.
*Input devices issues: In many cases it turned out that the key to get
DFB running on PPCs is disabling the linux_input module.
Whenever a success was reported (except for PowerBook6,7 IBook's), it
was because the linux_input module was disabled.
We also noticed that many i386 laptop touchpads do not to work properly
when the linux_input module is enabled, and hence the user has to plug
in an USB mouse to use the installer.
Also, i noticed that, after reloading the keymap with
dfb_input_device_reload_keymap( dfb_input_device_at( DIDID_KEYBOARD ) );
with a MiniMac, the keymap ended totally messed up, and this is an even
severe issue that mouse one.
A reasonable configuration for directfbrc seems to be
no-hardware
disable-module=linux_input
and this could be a temporary workaround to all our issues.
A fix for those issues is needed, as Etch release date is getting closer
every day.
Do you DFB guys have any idea about how to fix this sort of issues?
The most important thing is of course getting input devices working
properly.
cheers
Attilio
[1] http://wiki.debian.org/DebianInstaller/GUIToDo
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