Some thoughts about firmware inclusion.

Jeremy Katz katzj at redhat.com
Mon Oct 22 14:59:38 UTC 2007


On Mon, 2007-10-22 at 16:49 +0200, Hans de Goede wrote:
> Jeremy Katz wrote:
> > On Mon, 2007-10-22 at 10:06 -0400, Jon Masters wrote:
> >> On a tangent, I would like to have a discussion about in-kernel firmware
> >> as it becomes split out and loaded using request_firmware. So that third
> >> parties can supply different firmware updates, can we agree that it's
> >> worthwhile having one firmware package for each firmware file set needed
> >> by the kernel package, in the longer term?
> > 
> > This is fine (well, not for F8 obviously, but we can make it okay for
> > F9), with a few caveats:
> > 1) The module *MUST* have the needed firmware tagged appropriately so
> > that we can figure out what firmware to pull into initrds, the
> > installer, etc
> > 2) We should probably follow the path being blazed with wireless
> > firmware where we include the multiple, incompatible firmware versions
> > in one package.  Otherwise, the fact that multiple kernels can be
> > installed leads to a a bit of a quagmire
> > 3) Care needs to be taken so that upgrades will work correctly once the
> > firmware has moved.  A requires is one answer, and maybe the best, but
> > there definitely needs to be some thought
> > 
> 
> 4) This effort must be done upstream using the current standard kernel firmware
>     mechanisms and then trickle down into Fedora from upstream. I can already
>     hear Dave J. screaming in the night if we are going to carry Fedora specific
>     kernel patches for this.

*grin*  I just thought that was a given :-)

Jeremy




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