Messages in this thread | | | Date | Thu, 11 Sep 2008 10:23:49 +1000 | From | Herbert Xu <> | Subject | Re: [PATCH] firmware: Allow release-specific firmware dir |
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On Wed, Sep 10, 2008 at 04:42:20PM -0700, David Miller wrote: > > For example, Herbert Xu (CC:'d) told me that because of this directory > usage, his wireless card couldn't find it's firmware with current > kernels.
Actually my complaint is still theoretical.
It's about firmware that's closely tied to the driver and where a driver may not operate at all with a firmware of the wrong version. There are wireless drivers which have version dependencies, e.g., newer ipw2200 drivers often require newer firmware which may not be backwards compatible.
So I don't want to be in a situation where I install a new kernel, find that its wireless driver doesn't function correctly for whatever reason (which has happened to me previously at an airport), and then not be able to boot back into my old kernel to fix it because the firmware has now been overwritten.
I appreciate the thought on saving disk space. However, I think the safest default is to install firmware (at least those from the kernel) into a version-specific directory. Alternatively we should ensure that all firmware have version strings embedded in their names (e.g., ipw2200 versions their firmware so they would be OK), and that they're kept up-to-date whenever the firmware changes.
Thanks, -- Visit Openswan at http://www.openswan.org/ Email: Herbert Xu ~{PmV>HI~} <herbert@gondor.apana.org.au> Home Page: http://gondor.apana.org.au/~herbert/ PGP Key: http://gondor.apana.org.au/~herbert/pubkey.txt
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