On Tue, May 18, 2010 at 11:17:06PM +1000, CaT wrote:I don't think that's the case here, he's not asking that new firmware be put in the kernel, just that existing firmware not be taken out.On Tue, May 18, 2010 at 05:55:39AM -0700, Greg KH wrote:I do not understand. The firmware is now part of the linux-firmwareWell, the driver used to work and appears to be useless without it. I guess
tree, and if you install that, it is working just fine, right? We moved
the firmware out of the kernel tree on purpose.
So what is the problem here?
I'm wondering why it was kept out of the firmware directory where all the
other firmware lives (and so allow the driver to simply continue to work
and allow it to be compiled in).
Because we are not adding new firmware to the kernel tree wherever
possible, but instead, putting it in the separate linux-firmware tree.
I'm not sure that I see the logic of having a kernel with a driver which doesn't work without the firmware, and a firmware tree which is equally useless on it's own. At the least I would expect the kernel build system to refuse to build the driver unless the firmware was present, and then build the firmware from wherever it's been hidden and put the whole thing into a bootable kernel.At the moment all the change appears to have done is break things that have
been working without issue since before the driver was even in staging.
Just update the linux-firmware package and all will be working again.
We've been moving the firmware out of the staging drivers for a while
now, as they don't belong in the kernel tree.