Re: [PATCH] net/r8169: Remove the firmware of RTL8111D

Ben Hutchings
2010-12-06T04:38:14Z

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On Wed, 2010-12-01 at 09:07 +0100, Francois Romieu wrote:
> Hayes Wang <hayeswang@realtek.com> :
> > Remove the firmware of RTL8111D from the kernel.
> > The binary file of firmware would be moved to linux-firmware repository.
>
> The driver can not simply go along when request_firmware fails. Though Ben's
> code did not take care of it, the driver should imho propagate some return
> code. Ben ?
[...]

Sorry I haven't been more responsive on this.

I have reports that the RTL8111D/8168D hardware can work without this
firmware, possibly with limited functionality or compatibility. (I
assume it is a patch for the original firmware loaded from ROM or
flash.) So I feel obliged to give users the choice to use the driver
without installing non-free firmware. If you want to make the warning
on failure of request_firmware() more explicit then that's OK with me.
If you make the failure fatal I will probably revert that in Debian.

Ben.

--
Ben Hutchings, Debian Developer and kernel team member

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