Re: [GIT PULL] Firmware files removal for 4.14-rc1

From: Greg KH
Date: Sat Sep 16 2017 - 12:55:45 EST


On Sat, Sep 16, 2017 at 08:25:03AM +0200, Markus Trippelsdorf wrote:
> On 2017.09.16 at 06:51 +0200, Markus Trippelsdorf wrote:
> > On 2017.09.15 at 11:56 -0700, Greg KH wrote:
> > > The following changes since commit 569dbb88e80deb68974ef6fdd6a13edb9d686261:
> > >
> > > Linux 4.13 (2017-09-03 13:56:17 -0700)
> > >
> > > are available in the git repository at:
> > >
> > > git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/gregkh/driver-core.git/ tags/firmware_removal-4.14-rc1
> > >
> > > for you to fetch changes up to 5620a0d1aacd554ebebcff373e31107bb1ef7769:
> > >
> > > firmware: delete in-kernel firmware (2017-09-14 14:49:41 -0700)
> > >
> > > ----------------------------------------------------------------
> > > Firmware removal patch for 4.14-rc1
> > >
> > > Many many years ago (at the kernel summit in Boston), we all came to the
> > > agreement that the firmware/ tree should be dropped from the kernel, and
> > > everyone use the linux-firmware package instead. For some minor reason,
> > > David Woodhouse didn't send the pull request at that point in time, and
> > > everyone forgot about this.
> > >
> > > The topic came up in the hallway track at the Plumbers conference this
> > > week, so here's a single patch that drops the whole firmware tree. The
> > > last firmware update was back in 2013, and all distros have been using
> > > linux-firmware instead since at least that year, if not before. The
> > > only commits to that directory since 2013 was some kbuild fixups for
> > > various build tool issues.
> > >
> > > So lets finally drop this, we don't need to lug them around in the
> > > kernel source tree anymore, especially as no one wants or uses them.
> >
> > Well, it is one thing to drop the redundant binary blobs. But is another
> > to break perfectly fine setups that worked for years, e.g.:
> >
> > CONFIG_FW_LOADER=y
> > CONFIG_FIRMWARE_IN_KERNEL=y
> > CONFIG_EXTRA_FIRMWARE="amd-ucode/microcode_amd.bin radeon/R600_rlc.bin"
> > CONFIG_EXTRA_FIRMWARE_DIR="/lib/firmware"
> >
> > Please restore the support for built-in firmware.

How did that break anything? You are still using external firmware,
right?

> The following patch seems to work for me.
>
> Makefile | 2 +-
> drivers/base/Kconfig | 5 +----
> firmware/.gitignore | 6 +++++
> firmware/Makefile | 63 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> 4 files changed, 71 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)
> create mode 100644 firmware/.gitignore
> create mode 100644 firmware/Makefile

That just adds an empty Makefile that doesn't actually build anything
into the kernel. What error is this fixing? I did a bunch of build
tests with the patch that I submitted, and nothing failed.

confused,

greg k-h