linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] firmware: Allow release-specific firmware dir

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Date:	Thu, 11 Sep 2008 03:15:12 -0400
From:	Jeff Mahoney <jeffm@...e.com>
To:	Faidon Liambotis <paravoid@...ian.org>
Cc:	David Miller <davem@...emloft.net>, dwmw2@...radead.org,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, akpm@...ux-foundation.org,
	torvalds@...ux-foundation.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH] firmware: Allow release-specific firmware dir

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Faidon Liambotis wrote:
> David Miller wrote:
>>> Firmware really _isn't_ version-specific.
>> Tell that to every Debian and Debian derived system on the planet.
>>
>> To my knowledge, it is only fedora and possibly one or two other dists
>> that put the firmware files in a unary /lib/firmware location, rather
>> than a versioned /lib/firmware/$KERNELRELASE one.
> [not speaking on behalf of the project, the kernel team or the
> respective maintainers]
> 
> Apparently and afaik you are misinformed:

Well that's the thing. These are specific firmware packages that exist
outside of those created by the kernel. My original patch wasn't
proposing using /lib/firmware/$KERNELRELEASE for *all* firmware blobs,
just those that are generated and installed by the kernel build process.

The problem occurs when you have multiple versions of the kernel
installed and they all want to put firmware blobs into /lib/firmware.
The firmware blobs created by the kernel aren't versioned liked those in
the examples you've provided, so you end up with a bunch of blobs with
potentially different contents, all with the same names.

I'm not suggesting killing /lib/firmware-located blobs at all. That's
where you look once you discover that /lib/firmware/$KERNELRELEASE
doesn't have the blob you're looking for. That's where firmware packages
like the examples below would still place their files. I see no reason
to change that. If the blobs are versioned so that a particular name
always contains the same contents, that's fine too. What we can't have
is files in the same location with different contents.

In the end, though, Andrew's right. We can't go breaking udev prior to
127 with this.

- -Jeff

> $ dpkg -L firmware-bnx2 (or [1])
> ...
> /lib/firmware/bnx2-06-4.0.5.fw
> /lib/firmware/bnx2-09-4.0.5.fw
> ...
> 
> $ dpkg -L firmware-iwlwifi (or [2])
> ...
> /lib/firmware/iwlwifi-3945-1.ucode
> /lib/firmware/iwlwifi-4965-1.ucode
> /lib/firmware/iwlwifi-4965-2.ucode
> ...
> 
> $ dpkg -L firmware-qlogic (or [3])
> ...
> /lib/firmware/ql2100_fw.bin
> /lib/firmware/ql2200_fw.bin
> /lib/firmware/ql2300_fw.bin
> /lib/firmware/ql2322_fw.bin
> /lib/firmware/ql2400_fw.bin
> /lib/firmware/ql2500_fw.bin
> ...
> 
> etc. for the other firmware packages[4].
> 
> Regards,
> Faidon
> 
> 1: http://packages.debian.org/sid/all/firmware-bnx2/filelist
> 2: http://packages.debian.org/sid/all/firmware-iwlwifi/filelist
> 3: http://packages.debian.org/sid/all/firmware-qlogic/filelist
> 4: http://packages.debian.org/firmware

- --
Jeff Mahoney
SUSE Labs
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