linux-kernel - Re: Intel Microcode loader, tg3 driver, and the -rc8-mmotd New World Order firmware...

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Message-ID: <76161.1215092936@turing-police.cc.vt.edu>
Date:	Thu, 03 Jul 2008 09:48:56 -0400
From:	Valdis.Kletnieks@...edu
To:	David Woodhouse <dwmw2@...radead.org>
Cc:	Tigran Aivazian <tigran@...azian.fsnet.co.uk>,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, jonathan@...masters.org,
	Shaohua Li <shaohua.li@...el.com>, greg@...ah.com,
	Kay Sievers <kay.sievers@...y.org>, arjan@...radead.org
Subject: Re: Intel Microcode loader, tg3 driver, and the -rc8-mmotd New World Order firmware...

On Thu, 03 Jul 2008 13:21:35 BST, David Woodhouse said:
> On Thu, 2008-07-03 at 07:34 -0400, Valdis.Kletnieks@...edu wrote:
> > Actually, FIRMWARE_IN_KERNEL *did* make a difference - it busticated the tg
3
> > driver and while fighting with the 'firmware: requesting tigon/tg3_tso.bin'
> > errors I had just inflicted on myself, 
> 
> Just to confirm: that works either with CONFIG_FIRMWARE_IN_KERNEL=y or
> if you run 'make INSTALL_FW_PATH=/lib/firmware firmware_install', right?

The old config was FIRMWARE_IN_KERNEL=y, and that worked fine because the
microcode was compiled into tg3.o and All Was Good.

My current, *also* working config has FIRMWARE_IN_KERNEL=n, and CONFIG_TIGON3=m.
System comes up, initrd runs, the real root gets loaded, udev gets started,
and when the modprobe happens, /lib/firmware/tigon is there to handle the
request_firmware that gets launched when the module loads.

The *broken* config was FIRMWARE_IN_KERNEL=n, CONFIG_TIGON3=y.  System comes up,
the request_firmware pops *very* early (as in while we're still on the initrd),
and I couldn't figure out how to get Fedora/nash/etc to do the firmware load
from the initrd (nash seems to want it in /firmware/tigon3, but putting it
there didn't help any).  By the time udev gets launched, that request is DOA
and the interface doesn't come up.  But as I said, that *seems* to be just a
lack of clue on my part about what nash wants.

> I'm not entirely sure whether we should make 'make firmware_install'
> install to /lib/firmware by default, or to $(O)/usr/lib/firmware as it
> does at the moment.
> 
> The former is consistent with 'make modules_install', and the latter is
> consistent with 'make headers_install'. Both of which have good reasons
> for being the way they are.

Somebody else can decide that one.  Kay does make a point in another mail
that you *really* want it to end up in /lib/firmware for good reasons.

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