Re: Missing firmware iwlwifi-2030-5.ucode

[Larry Finger <Larry.Finger@lwfinger.net>]

On 08/20/2012 05:45 AM, Johannes Berg wrote:

Johannes,

> Unfortunately, I can't just release this firmware, it was mostly
> internal experimental builds, we released the -6 version later. However,
> as Thomas pointed out, it should be possible to backport some patches to
> make the driver in 3.1.9 work with the device, that simply wasn't a
> concern for us and it's not entirely clear to me that such patches are
> candidates for stable.

The openSUSE user has gotten his system working by installing the 
compat-wireless package. I do not know if he could patch and compile his own 
kernel, and I don't have that device in my collection, thus I would be unable to 
test any such changes.

I'm still concerned about the bigger picture. I can understand that the -5 
version was experimental, but why was a driver released that needed a firmware 
version that could never be obtained? If any driver version needs a particular 
firmware, the fw must be available as long as anyone might be using that driver. 
To me, that means forever.

Larry