bnx2: update bnx2-mips-09 firmware to bnx2-mips-09-6.2.1b

Commit c2c20ef43d00 "bnx2: Update driver to use new mips firmware" updated the bnx2 driver to use bnx2-mips-09-6.2.1b in place of bnx2-mips-09-6.2.1a, but didn't replace the copy of bnx2-mips-09-6.2.1a in firmware/bnx2/ with the new version.

This means that the bnx2 driver stopped working altogether for users who use CONFIG_FIRMWARE_IN_KERNEL to compile firmware together with drivers into their kernel, rather than having a runtime firmware loader.

Cc <[email protected]>

Signed-off-by Chris Webb <[email protected]>

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Have you read firmware/README.AddingFirmware ?

Is there a more automatic method than going through the source for each configured driver and setting CONFIG_EXTRA_FIRMWARE manually to list the relevant firmwares? Is there any way to give the kernel the location of linux-firmware and have it compile in everything needed for the selected drivers, as used to happen with the firmware/ subdirectory? CONFIG_EXTRA_FIRMWARE_DIR doesn't seem to do anything with CONFIG_EXTRA_FIRMWARE empty, so I don't think it does what I'm hoping?

Quoted 1 line · Eric Dumazet

Have you read firmware/README.AddingFirmware ?

I hadn't, but now I have, and if firmware upgrades are considered 'adding new firmware', I agree this patch is wrong, and should have just removed the obsolete bnx2-mips-09-6.2.1a file that is no longer used by the bnx2 driver.

However, not having dealt with cards that need these kinds of horrible binary blobs before, I'm a little uncertain how I should be building upstream kernels with CONFIG_FIRMWARE_IN_KERNEL and pulling in the correct blobs from a linux-firmware checkout.

Is there a more automatic method than going through the source for each configured driver and setting CONFIG_EXTRA_FIRMWARE manually to list the relevant firmwares? Is there any way to give the kernel the location of linux-firmware and have it compile in everything needed for the selected drivers, as used to happen with the firmware/ subdirectory? CONFIG_EXTRA_FIRMWARE_DIR doesn't seem to do anything with CONFIG_EXTRA_FIRMWARE empty, so I don't think it does what I'm hoping?

Commit c2c20ef43d00 "bnx2: Update driver to use new mips firmware" updated the bnx2 driver to use bnx2-mips-09-6.2.1b in place of bnx2-mips-09-6.2.1a, but didn't replace the copy of bnx2-mips-09-6.2.1a in firmware/bnx2/ with the new version.

This means that the bnx2 driver stopped working altogether for users who use CONFIG_FIRMWARE_IN_KERNEL to compile firmware together with drivers into their kernel, rather than having a runtime firmware loader.

Quoted 5 lines

Commit c2c20ef43d00 "bnx2: Update driver to use new mips firmware" updated the bnx2 driver to use bnx2-mips-09-6.2.1b in place of bnx2-mips-09-6.2.1a, but didn't replace the copy of bnx2-mips-09-6.2.1a in firmware/bnx2/ with the new version.

Quoted 4 lines

This means that the bnx2 driver stopped working altogether for users who use CONFIG_FIRMWARE_IN_KERNEL to compile firmware together with drivers into their kernel, rather than having a runtime firmware loader.

Still not fixed in mainline? I encountered the same problem with v3.6-rc1-133-g42a579a.

From: Jike Song <[email protected]>
Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2012 13:50:42 +0800

Quoted 6 lines · Chris Webb

Quoted 5 lines

Commit c2c20ef43d00 "bnx2: Update driver to use new mips firmware" updated the bnx2 driver to use bnx2-mips-09-6.2.1b in place of bnx2-mips-09-6.2.1a, but didn't replace the copy of bnx2-mips-09-6.2.1a in firmware/bnx2/ with the new version.

Quoted 7 lines

Quoted 4 lines

This means that the bnx2 driver stopped working altogether for users who use CONFIG_FIRMWARE_IN_KERNEL to compile firmware together with drivers into their kernel, rather than having a runtime firmware loader.

Still not fixed in mainline? I encountered the same problem with v3.6-rc1-133-g42a579a.

The current firmware for all drivers are not distributed in the kernel sources any longer, they are maintained in a completely seperate repository.

The old ones are just kept around in the kernel sources for compatability.

This is a FAQ.

Well, if the drivers provided with the kernel don't work out of the box anymore, maybe we should also move them to a separate repository. All it is going to do otherwise is to cause invalid bug reports because users don't understand why using the latest driver does not work.

That way it would be clear that an in-kernel driver has to be self-sustaining to be maintainable, otherwise it has nothing to do there.

Quoted 6 lines · Willy Tarreau

Well, if the drivers provided with the kernel don't work out of the box anymore, maybe we should also move them to a separate repository. All it is going to do otherwise is to cause invalid bug reports because users don't understand why using the latest driver does not work.

Quoted 2 lines

That way it would be clear that an in-kernel driver has to be self-sustaining to be maintainable, otherwise it has nothing to do there.

People compiling their own kernels are supposed to be able to handle this problem themselves.

If not, they can use a distro.

Hi Eric,

Quoted 8 lines · Eric Dumazet

Quoted 6 lines · Willy Tarreau

Well, if the drivers provided with the kernel don't work out of the box anymore, maybe we should also move them to a separate repository. All it is going to do otherwise is to cause invalid bug reports because users don't understand why using the latest driver does not work.

Quoted 7 lines

Quoted 2 lines

That way it would be clear that an in-kernel driver has to be self-sustaining to be maintainable, otherwise it has nothing to do there.

People compiling their own kernels are supposed to be able to handle this problem themselves.

If not, they can use a distro.

But similarly, people who compile their own kernels are also supposed to be able to retrieve up-to-date drivers from another tree. I know many people who use the intel NIC drivers from sf.net and (less) other ones using myricom's drivers for instance.

I don't really see the value of keeping in the tree drivers that don't work out of the box, if it's only causing issues and bug reports.