No 'Free Software Only' or Language selection options for PowerPC

[ojordan]

I'm trying to complete the "Free Software Only in Ubuntu Desktop powerpc" testcase, but I don't have a clue how to select this. Is this part of ubiquity, or is it a grub menu? This is what is written in the testcase:

1. Start your machine with the install media in place
2. When you see the aubergine screen with an icon at the bottom, press any key to get the menu
3. Select your language and press Enter
4. Press F6 and use the down arrow to get to Free software only and press Enter

I'm assuming the aubergine screen is a grub menu (PowerPC doesn't have grub). I can only select a language when installing (I'm not given an option for just a live session). When the system boots after the yaboot prompt I don't have any menu to select a language or free software.

I need to run the installer for another architecture to see what PowerPC is missing.

[Ubuntu QA Website (ubuntuqa)]

This bug has been reported on the Ubuntu ISO testing tracker.

A list of all reports related to this bug can be found here:
http://iso.qa.ubuntu.com/qatracker/reports/bugs/944266

[Stéphane Graber (stgraber)]

This isn't a grub menu, that's the gfxboot menu that you see right after booting from the CD, assuming we have that on powerpc.

If you don't have a text based language/keyboard/option selection screen before booting the CD, then that means that this testcase doesn't apply to powerpc.

[Stéphane Graber (stgraber)]

Moved to gfxboot for now as it's definitely not related to ubiquity.

[ojordan (ojordan12345)]

Thanks Stéphane for the info. I didn't think it was going to be a Ubiquity bug, but I'm still not sure where to park the bug! PowerPC doesn't have gfxboot, just a basic yaboot prompt. I think it is too late for 12.04 to think about implementing gfxboot on PowerPC.

The Free Software only option could possibly be implemented as a yaboot option, but yaboot doesn't lend itself well to language selection. I did try and find another way to change language, but it seems the PowerPC CD only has English?

Maybe I'll get in touch with the QA people and see if the testcase can be removed for PowerPC.

[ojordan (ojordan12345)]

I'm just trying out the alternate installer and that has yaboot options for free only. I could swear the live cd doesn't though. When the install has finished I'll have another look at the yaboot options.

[ojordan (ojordan12345)]

I checked with an old version of the live cd and it doesn't have free only yaboot options. Does anybody know the package I need to raise this issue against?

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

The test case should be amended for powerpc, really. yaboot is too cumbersome to implement this kind of thing in.

In general, bugs about the live CD boot configuration should be raised on the ubuntu-cdimage project.

[ojordan (ojordan12345)]

Thanks once again Colin. I agree yaboot isn't the best at this sort of thing! I don't think there is a pressing need to offer a free only option on the PowerPC live cd so I am happy for the testcase just to be removed. It lightens the workload of everyone!

Without wishing to hijack this bug report I have a few ideas to improve the boot info text on the CDs. The video=ofonly advice is a little dated now. If I put something together, would it be possible to get it changed?

[ojordan (ojordan12345)]

The Free Software Only testcase has been removed for the PowerPC Ubuntu Desktop ISO.

For anybody requiring this option, they should add the following yaboot parameters:

apt-setup/restricted=false apt-setup/multiverse=false