Return-path: Received: from mail-ee0-f46.google.com ([74.125.83.46]:50174 "EHLO mail-ee0-f46.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1750902Ab2HUE4H (ORCPT ); Tue, 21 Aug 2012 00:56:07 -0400 Received: by eeil10 with SMTP id l10so2021067eei.19 for ; Mon, 20 Aug 2012 21:56:06 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <1345478494.4459.30.camel@jlt3.sipsolutions.net> References: <502D0C72.2050207@lwfinger.net> <1345459509.4459.5.camel@jlt3.sipsolutions.net> <50325D89.9080209@lwfinger.net> <1345478494.4459.30.camel@jlt3.sipsolutions.net> From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?G=E1bor_Stefanik?= Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2012 06:55:46 +0200 Message-ID: (sfid-20120821_065646_151608_E8EE2C8C) Subject: Re: Missing firmware iwlwifi-2030-5.ucode To: Johannes Berg Cc: Larry Finger , Intel Linux Wireless , linux-wireless , Ben Hutchings Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Sender: linux-wireless-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: On Mon, Aug 20, 2012 at 6:01 PM, Johannes Berg wrote: > On Mon, 2012-08-20 at 10:53 -0500, Larry Finger wrote: > >> 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. > > Well, yes. That firmware, however, never was never available publicly. > The fact that the driver was released anyway is due to us working on the > driver upstream while working with the experimental internal firmware. > > johannes Perhaps we should add a Kconfig option to disable internal development hardware - with that option unchecked, support for hardware that is not on the market is disabled, with a printk warning to upgrade the driver in case a user tries to use a driver with a card that it thinks is internal-only. This way, users will get a meaningful error message, rather than a misleading "missing firmware" one. The Kconfig option should also come with a big warning of "Say N unless you are an Intel employee". Maybe it should even be marked BROKEN, like N-PHY was in b43 before it became usable.