Bug 291052 - Request to offline-distribute kernel modules and pkg(8) repositories in iso and img images.
Summary: Request to offline-distribute kernel modules and pkg(8) repositories in iso a...
Status: New
Alias: None
Product: Base System
Classification: Unclassified
Component: misc (show other bugs)
Version: 15.0-CURRENT
Hardware: Any Any
: --- Affects Only Me
Assignee: freebsd-bugs (Nobody)
URL:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2025-11-17 03:46 UTC by ykla
Modified: 2025-11-22 04:10 UTC (History)
3 users (show)

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Description ykla 2025-11-17 03:46:42 UTC
Now most files are distributed offline, except kernel modules and pkg(8) repositories. This is very inconvenient for our region. Since bsdinstall was not designed with disconnected-network situations in mind (that is, it does not check whether the connection to freebsd.org is valid, nor does it perform speed detection), it will continue even at a speed of only a few KB per second, and it cannot be interrupted, because interrupting bsdinstall at any time and in any place will cause it to fall back to TTY or exit directly, and entering bsdinstall will return to the very beginning. Now even the most conservative Debian has begun distributing non-free firmware inside their iso images. Please ask the FreeBSD project to consider distributing kernel modules and pkg(8) repositories offline in iso and img images.
Comment 1 Colin Percival freebsd_committer freebsd_triage 2025-11-21 17:52:43 UTC
We can't put everything into DVD images.  The pkgbase repository is available as a separate download on download.freebsd.org.
Comment 2 ykla 2025-11-22 04:10:10 UTC
(In reply to Colin Percival from comment #1)
Actually, I meant the kmod pkg source rather than the pkgbase. In kmod, some drivers will be called in bsdinstall, such as drivers for wireless network cards and graphics cards. These drivers do not take up a huge amount of space. After failing to install, the system does not prompt the user to call fgwet for the actual installation. How can drivers be installed without a network card driver? If the user needs both an ax200 and a Realtek Ethernet card at the same time, they fall into a kind of paradox — I am an example of this. Using Android phone RNDIS also only works on certain phones. Downloading with a USB drive and then installing offline is not a feasible solution either, as pkg's domain name actually forbids users from accessing it normally (403 error). For example, https://pkg.freebsd.org/FreeBSD:15:amd64/kmods_latest/All/. Pkg data may also be refreshed, but the version it points to is still old. Therefore, even if the actual URL is pieced together from the file name, it may still fail to download. Returning to the BSDinstall installation flow, it does not check the network download speed; it simply keeps downloading at a speed of several KB and, in most cases, gets stuck.