Questions about firmware

Questions about firmware

[Larry Finger]

Rafa?,

I have finished modifying fwcutter to handle the 5 new files in your site that 
are now transferred to mine. I will be sending the patches to Michael as soon as 
the issue of the location of the files is resolved.

As I understand it, one needs to extract firmware from the 5.100.138 driver to 
handle an HT PHY; however, my experience is that the older FW is also converted 
to the new RX descriptors, and that using it with an unmodified driver will fail.

As I am in the process of updating the install_bcm43xx_firmware script for 
openSUSE, we need to decide how to handle the situation. Thus far, I have two 
possible solutions:

1. Change the default firmware directory for any version of b43 that has the 
newest version of the RX header. In this case, fwcutter would be modified to use 
the revision level of the FW to decide the output directory. The openSUSE script 
would need to download and cut FW from both 5.100.138 and 5.10.144.3. The extra 
11 or 12 MB of download is a pain, but at least it is not 50-100 MB.

2. Change the openSUSE script to download and cut from 5.100.138 followed by an 
immediate download and cut from 5.10.144.3 with the output from both going to 
/lib/firmware/b43. Is there a clean separation between the devices that need the 
new firmware so that this would work? Of course, the openSUSE script still needs 
to download two drivers. I see no way around that.

I favor #1 for several reasons. It is distro agnostic. All the users need is 
access to the latest version of fwcutter. In addition, I'm sure that it will 
work for all versions of the driver and the hardware.

Any other ideas?

Larry

Questions about firmware

[Rafał Miłecki]

W dniu 14 sierpnia 2011 19:59 u?ytkownik Larry Finger
<Larry.Finger@lwfinger.net> napisa?:
> As I understand it, one needs to extract firmware from the 5.100.138 driver
> to handle an HT PHY; however, my experience is that the older FW is also
> converted to the new RX descriptors, and that using it with an unmodified
> driver will fail.

File xmit.h gives some hint. Following firmwares use new RX/TX headers:
/* Tested with 598.314, 644.1001 and 666.2 */

Two drivers I've found [0] contain firmware for HT-PHY cards:
broadcom-wl-5.100.104.2.tar.bz2 (FW: 644.1001)
broadcom-wl-5.100.138.tar.bz2 (FW: 666.2)
(I don't host any driver containing firmware 598.314)


> As I am in the process of updating the install_bcm43xx_firmware script for
> openSUSE, we need to decide how to handle the situation. Thus far, I have
> two possible solutions:
>
> 1. Change the default firmware directory for any version of b43 that has the
> newest version of the RX header. In this case, fwcutter would be modified to
> use the revision level of the FW to decide the output directory. The
> openSUSE script would need to download and cut FW from both 5.100.138 and
> 5.10.144.3. The extra 11 or 12 MB of download is a pain, but at least it is
> not 50-100 MB.
>
> 2. Change the openSUSE script to download and cut from 5.100.138 followed by
> an immediate download and cut from 5.10.144.3 with the output from both
> going to /lib/firmware/b43. Is there a clean separation between the devices
> that need the new firmware so that this would work? Of course, the openSUSE
> script still needs to download two drivers. I see no way around that.
>
> I favor #1 for several reasons. It is distro agnostic. All the users need is
> access to the latest version of fwcutter. In addition, I'm sure that it will
> work for all versions of the driver and the hardware.
>
> Any other ideas?

For wiki [1] readers we will need to write some short instruction.

For distribution I propose something easier. If distro is using 3.1
kernel - provide script using older firmware. If distro is using 3.2
or newer - extract firmware from newer driver.


[0] http://broadcom.zajec.net/
[1] http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/b43

-- 
Rafa?

Questions about firmware

[Larry Finger]

On 08/14/2011 01:21 PM, Rafa? Mi?ecki wrote:
>
> For wiki [1] readers we will need to write some short instruction.
>
> For distribution I propose something easier. If distro is using 3.1
> kernel - provide script using older firmware. If distro is using 3.2
> or newer - extract firmware from newer driver.

For non-HT PHY and 3.2, will the driver handle both flavors of firmware? I think 
the answer is yes, but I want confirmation.

Larry

Questions about firmware

[Rafał Miłecki]

W dniu 14 sierpnia 2011 20:31 u?ytkownik Larry Finger
<Larry.Finger@lwfinger.net> napisa?:
> On 08/14/2011 01:21 PM, Rafa? Mi?ecki wrote:
>>
>> For wiki [1] readers we will need to write some short instruction.
>>
>> For distribution I propose something easier. If distro is using 3.1
>> kernel - provide script using older firmware. If distro is using 3.2
>> or newer - extract firmware from newer driver.
>
> For non-HT PHY and 3.2, will the driver handle both flavors of firmware? I
> think the answer is yes, but I want confirmation.

Yes, we keep backward compatibility with older firmwares.

-- 
Rafa?

Questions about firmware

[Larry Finger]

On 08/14/2011 01:35 PM, Rafa? Mi?ecki wrote:
> W dniu 14 sierpnia 2011 20:31 u?ytkownik Larry Finger
> <Larry.Finger@lwfinger.net>  napisa?:
>> On 08/14/2011 01:21 PM, Rafa? Mi?ecki wrote:
>>>
>>> For wiki [1] readers we will need to write some short instruction.
>>>
>>> For distribution I propose something easier. If distro is using 3.1
>>> kernel - provide script using older firmware. If distro is using 3.2
>>> or newer - extract firmware from newer driver.
>>
>> For non-HT PHY and 3.2, will the driver handle both flavors of firmware? I
>> think the answer is yes, but I want confirmation.
>
> Yes, we keep backward compatibility with older firmwares.

OK. I will modify the openSUSE script accordingly, and I will try to update the 
wiki.

The other distros will presumably catch up.

Larry

Questions about firmware

[Rafał Miłecki]

W dniu 14 sierpnia 2011 20:21 u?ytkownik Rafa? Mi?ecki
<zajec5@gmail.com> napisa?:
> W dniu 14 sierpnia 2011 19:59 u?ytkownik Larry Finger
>> Any other ideas?
>
> For wiki [1] readers we will need to write some short instruction.
>
> For distribution I propose something easier. If distro is using 3.1
> kernel - provide script using older firmware. If distro is using 3.2
> or newer - extract firmware from newer driver.

If you really care, you can add some magic switch like
--force-newer-firmware
for ppl installing compat-wireless.

-- 
Rafa?