netdev - Re: [bug?] tg3: Failed to load firmware "tigon/tg3

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Message-ID: <20080705144445.GA17319@dspnet.fr.eu.org>
Date:	Sat, 5 Jul 2008 16:44:45 +0200
From:	Olivier Galibert <galibert@...ox.com>
To:	David Woodhouse <dwmw2@...radead.org>
Cc:	Andi Kleen <andi@...stfloor.org>, Takashi Iwai <tiwai@...e.de>,
	Hannes Reinecke <hare@...e.de>, Theodore Tso <tytso@....edu>,
	Jeff Garzik <jeff@...zik.org>,
	David Miller <davem@...emloft.net>, hugh@...itas.com,
	akpm@...ux-foundation.org, kosaki.motohiro@...fujitsu.com,
	mchan@...adcom.com, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	linux-mm@...ck.org, netdev@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [bug?] tg3: Failed to load firmware "tigon/tg3_tso.bin"

On Sat, Jul 05, 2008 at 01:16:06PM +0100, David Woodhouse wrote:
> It almost never happens that you have kernel versions which _need_
> different firmware installed. In almost all cases, the older driver will
> continue to work just fine with the newer firmware (and its bug-fixes).

I'm not sure which planet you're from, but it's one without ipw2200
chips in it.  And in any case, the file names change.


> The ABI between driver and firmware rarely changes in such a fashion
> that you have to update the driver in lock-step -- and even on the
> occasions that it does, it's not hard to simply change the name of the
> "new-style" firmware so that it doesn't stomp on the old one (Think of
> it like an soname).

Ah, I see, you just didn't read the thread you're replying to.  Let's
do it again one more time.

The question is, how do you sanely distribute the kernel-tree
generated firmware in a binary distribution, knowing that you want to
be able to have multiple working kernels installed simultaneously?

Solution 1: in the kernel package
 -> You get file conflicts on the firmware files that do not change
    between kernel versions

Solution 2: in a package by itself
 -> You either break compatibility with kernel versions that happened
    before a firmware change, or you accumulate tons of files over
    time.  The accumulated form gets hard to create from source.

Solution 3: in the kernel package or in a kernel-specific package, but
  the files are in a kernel version-specific directory
  (/lib/firmware/`uname -r`, /lib/modules/`uname -r`/firmware)
 -> Incompatible with current userspace

Solution 4: in one package per firmware file, with appropriate
  dependencies on the kernel package
 -> A number of kernel package maintainers just took a hit on you


Any other solution you can see?

  OG.

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