Subject: bug#40538: installer: Support uvesafb to install on machines without KMS.

From: "pelzflorian (Florian Pelz)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2020 16:58:58 +0200

On Fri, Apr 10, 2020 at 04:38:37PM +0200, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
> AIUI, uvesafb is needed for ksmcon (or presumably X11) to work, but it’s
> not necessary to get the standard Linux framebuffer/console running
> (indeed, you were able to ctrl-alt-f3 to get a terminal).  Is this
> correct?

Yes, all correct.

> If that’s the case, then I think it’s acceptable for now to install a
> system that lacks uvesafb.  Of course X11 won’t work (right?),

Yes, right.

> which is
> not great, but people can hopefully address it at the console until we
> have a better fix, possibly using ‘kernel-module-configuration-service’
> as you write.
> 
> WDYT?

I agree.

I will try making a patch including your suggestions in a few hours.

>   2. Does "modprobe.d/uvesafb.conf" work?  I thought there was nothing
>      taking care of creating “modprobe.d” automatically.

I think I tested this version of the patch and it worked.  One can
test on QEMU by passing nomodeset (without uvesafb the installer stays
black, I think).  It also matches the description of
kernel-module-loader-service-type that was recently added to the
manual.

Regards,
Florian