b43 will need a firmware upgrade soon
The b43 driver will need an incompatible firmware upgrade, soon. I'm probably going to do this in 2.6.25 or 2.6.26. The update will require people to download and extract updated officially supported firmware. The firmware will be linked to from the usual place at linuxwireless.org. The driver will print a verbose error message when it detects too old firmware and abort initialization. This is needed in order to add support for new devices (N-PHY). Broadcom changed the ABI of the firmware, so we are forced to also change the ABI of the driver. I'm very sorry for the inconvenience. -- Greetings Michael. ___ Bcm43xx-dev mailing list Bcm43xx-dev@lists.berlios.de https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/bcm43xx-dev
Re: Speed issue 2.6.24-rc5 after a few days. Reloading b43 corrects it.
Ehud Gavron escribió: After the system has been up a while -- in this case 5 days -- the data transfer rate appears slow and this is confirmed by various tools such as ftp and speedtest.net. Reassociating with the AP has no effect on this symptom. modprobe -r b43 modprobe b43 corrects the symptom. What other diagnostics can I run next time I see this, so that I can provide better input as to what the problem is? I'm at this moment using rc6 kernel from fedora rawhide with excellent success. Try to see the performace withh the last rc vanilla kernel. ___ Bcm43xx-dev mailing list Bcm43xx-dev@lists.berlios.de https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/bcm43xx-dev
Re: b43 will need a firmware upgrade soon
Am Sonntag 06 Januar 2008 schrieb Michael Buesch: The b43 driver will need an incompatible firmware upgrade, soon. I'm probably going to do this in 2.6.25 or 2.6.26. The update will require people to download and extract updated officially supported firmware. The firmware will be linked to from the usual place at linuxwireless.org. The driver will print a verbose error message when it detects too old firmware and abort initialization. This is needed in order to add support for new devices (N-PHY). Broadcom changed the ABI of the firmware, so we are forced to also change the ABI of the driver. I'm very sorry for the inconvenience. Do these firmware files go to a different directory then? I would like to run my current kernel (b43 from git or 2.6.24) and the new one without having to exchange files every time I boot another kernel version. And yes, WLAN is my _only_ connection to the internet. Is it impossible to support both ABIs? HS PS: I am using Debian testing. ___ Bcm43xx-dev mailing list Bcm43xx-dev@lists.berlios.de https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/bcm43xx-dev
Re: b43 will need a firmware upgrade soon
On Sunday 06 January 2008 21:05:23 Hendrik Sattler wrote: Am Sonntag 06 Januar 2008 schrieb Michael Buesch: The b43 driver will need an incompatible firmware upgrade, soon. I'm probably going to do this in 2.6.25 or 2.6.26. The update will require people to download and extract updated officially supported firmware. The firmware will be linked to from the usual place at linuxwireless.org. The driver will print a verbose error message when it detects too old firmware and abort initialization. This is needed in order to add support for new devices (N-PHY). Broadcom changed the ABI of the firmware, so we are forced to also change the ABI of the driver. I'm very sorry for the inconvenience. Do these firmware files go to a different directory then? I would like to run my current kernel (b43 from git or 2.6.24) and the new one without having to exchange files every time I boot another kernel version. And yes, WLAN is my _only_ connection to the internet. see fwpostfix module parameter -- Greetings Michael. ___ Bcm43xx-dev mailing list Bcm43xx-dev@lists.berlios.de https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/bcm43xx-dev
Re: b43 will need a firmware upgrade soon
On Sun, Jan 06, 2008 at 06:02:38PM +0100, Michael Buesch wrote: This is needed in order to add support for new devices (N-PHY). Broadcom changed the ABI of the firmware, so we are forced to also change the ABI of the driver. Do we have reasonable confidence that the newer firmware will run on all the devices currently supported by b43? Or are we looking at another b43legacy type of situation? John -- John W. Linville [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Bcm43xx-dev mailing list Bcm43xx-dev@lists.berlios.de https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/bcm43xx-dev
Re: b43 will need a firmware upgrade soon
Quoting Michael Buesch [EMAIL PROTECTED]: see fwpostfix module parameter Can we please avoid this annoyance this time? It was bad at the bcm43xx/bcm43xx_mac80211 time, but it's going to be a bigger annoyance this time, because the driver with the same name b43 will need a different fwprefix for different kernel versions. I don't think modprobe.conf can be written to use different options for different kernel versions. And if it can, I don't want to force everyone to figure it out. The driver knows which firmware is needs. It's the driver's responsibility to express its requirements, rather that the users' responsibility to figure out which firmware this particular version of the driver wants. iwlwifi changed the firmware name when a different firmware was needed. And that's a good example, in my opinion. -- Regards, Pavel Roskin ___ Bcm43xx-dev mailing list Bcm43xx-dev@lists.berlios.de https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/bcm43xx-dev
Re: b43 will need a firmware upgrade soon
On Sun, Jan 06, 2008 at 09:58:22PM +0100, Michael Buesch wrote: On Sunday 06 January 2008 21:05:23 Hendrik Sattler wrote: Do these firmware files go to a different directory then? I would like to run my current kernel (b43 from git or 2.6.24) and the new one without having to exchange files every time I boot another kernel version. And yes, WLAN is my _only_ connection to the internet. see fwpostfix module parameter Ugh...that works but is a bit ugly. Is there any way we can version these firmware ABIs? I guess it might be as simple as simply setting a default fwpostfix value... John -- John W. Linville [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Bcm43xx-dev mailing list Bcm43xx-dev@lists.berlios.de https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/bcm43xx-dev
Re: b43 will need a firmware upgrade soon
On Sunday 06 January 2008 22:35:51 Pavel Roskin wrote: Quoting Michael Buesch [EMAIL PROTECTED]: see fwpostfix module parameter Can we please avoid this annoyance this time? Go and complain at Broadcom please. -- Greetings Michael. ___ Bcm43xx-dev mailing list Bcm43xx-dev@lists.berlios.de https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/bcm43xx-dev
Re: b43 will need a firmware upgrade soon
On Sunday 06 January 2008 21:34:35 John W. Linville wrote: On Sun, Jan 06, 2008 at 06:02:38PM +0100, Michael Buesch wrote: This is needed in order to add support for new devices (N-PHY). Broadcom changed the ABI of the firmware, so we are forced to also change the ABI of the driver. Do we have reasonable confidence that the newer firmware will run on all the devices currently supported by b43? Or are we looking at another b43legacy type of situation? We need to check this. Maybe we can support both firmware images in the driver. Not sure yet. -- Greetings Michael. ___ Bcm43xx-dev mailing list Bcm43xx-dev@lists.berlios.de https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/bcm43xx-dev
Re: b43 will need a firmware upgrade soon
On Sun, Jan 06, 2008 at 10:38:43PM +0100, Michael Buesch wrote: On Sunday 06 January 2008 22:35:51 Pavel Roskin wrote: Quoting Michael Buesch [EMAIL PROTECTED]: see fwpostfix module parameter Can we please avoid this annoyance this time? Go and complain at Broadcom please. Broadcom doesn't really have this problem, since they are free to include the binary firmware in their Windows/Mac/whatever drivers. If the driver needs different firmware, why not have it ask for different filenames? As I suggested elsewhere, this could be as simple as setting a default value for fwpostfix... John -- John W. Linville [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Bcm43xx-dev mailing list Bcm43xx-dev@lists.berlios.de https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/bcm43xx-dev
Re: b43 will need a firmware upgrade soon
Am Sonntag 06 Januar 2008 schrieb Michael Buesch:
On Sunday 06 January 2008 21:34:35 John W. Linville wrote:
On Sun, Jan 06, 2008 at 06:02:38PM +0100, Michael Buesch wrote:
This is needed in order to add support for new devices (N-PHY).
Broadcom changed the ABI of the firmware, so we are forced to also
change the ABI of the driver.
Do we have reasonable confidence that the newer firmware will run
on all the devices currently supported by b43? Or are we looking at
another b43legacy type of situation?
We need to check this.
Maybe we can support both firmware images in the driver. Not sure yet.
As you already mentioned fwpostfix: can the driver somehow do something like
the soname is for libraries, e.g. increasing a serial number in the firmware
file names? This would make it possible to install several incompatible
versions in parallel.
Example: fwcutter unpacks such versions to
/lib/modules/firmware/b43.${ABIVERSION}
and the driver looks in the directories for whatever kinds of ABIVERSION are
supported by that version of the driver.
HS
___
Bcm43xx-dev mailing list
Bcm43xx-dev@lists.berlios.de
https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/bcm43xx-dev
Re: b43 will need a firmware upgrade soon
Quoting Michael Buesch [EMAIL PROTECTED]: On Sunday 06 January 2008 22:35:51 Pavel Roskin wrote: Quoting Michael Buesch [EMAIL PROTECTED]: see fwpostfix module parameter Can we please avoid this annoyance this time? Go and complain at Broadcom please. Mind you, there is nothing fundamentally wrong with changing firmware or changing its API. Sure, Broadcom firmware is not under GPL, so we have to keep it in separate files rather than link it into the kernel. But the same situation exists for many other drivers, even those where the vendors are much more cooperative, such as Intel. If the firmware is kept outside the kernel, we have a problem of synchronization between the driver and the firmware. It can be addressed gracefully, or not so gracefully. The choice is entirely ours, and Broadcom is not to blame for our choice. -- Regards, Pavel Roskin ___ Bcm43xx-dev mailing list Bcm43xx-dev@lists.berlios.de https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/bcm43xx-dev
Re: b43 will need a firmware upgrade soon
On Sunday 06 January 2008 23:01:00 John W. Linville wrote: On Sun, Jan 06, 2008 at 10:38:43PM +0100, Michael Buesch wrote: On Sunday 06 January 2008 22:35:51 Pavel Roskin wrote: Quoting Michael Buesch [EMAIL PROTECTED]: see fwpostfix module parameter Can we please avoid this annoyance this time? Go and complain at Broadcom please. Broadcom doesn't really have this problem, since they are free to include the binary firmware in their Windows/Mac/whatever drivers. If the driver needs different firmware, why not have it ask for different filenames? As I suggested elsewhere, this could be as simple as setting a default value for fwpostfix... I'm not sure why people are complaining about stuff that's not done, yet. I just said that we need an update to an incompatible firmware soon. HOW that happens is an entirely different question. It seems like we _might_ be able to support both fw versions for some limited time. If that is not possible for whatever reason, I will change the fw filenames, of course. (And people will complain about that, too. Because the rule for broadcom firmware is: Always complain about whatever you do. ;) ) The _just_ wanted to tell people about a serious change _before_ it happens. I'm not sure why this results in all kinds of complaints. Thanks anyway for the feedback. -- Greetings Michael. ___ Bcm43xx-dev mailing list Bcm43xx-dev@lists.berlios.de https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/bcm43xx-dev
Re: b43 will need a firmware upgrade soon
On Monday, 7 of January 2008, Michael Buesch wrote: On Sunday 06 January 2008 23:01:00 John W. Linville wrote: On Sun, Jan 06, 2008 at 10:38:43PM +0100, Michael Buesch wrote: On Sunday 06 January 2008 22:35:51 Pavel Roskin wrote: Quoting Michael Buesch [EMAIL PROTECTED]: see fwpostfix module parameter Can we please avoid this annoyance this time? Go and complain at Broadcom please. Broadcom doesn't really have this problem, since they are free to include the binary firmware in their Windows/Mac/whatever drivers. If the driver needs different firmware, why not have it ask for different filenames? As I suggested elsewhere, this could be as simple as setting a default value for fwpostfix... I'm not sure why people are complaining about stuff that's not done, yet. I just said that we need an update to an incompatible firmware soon. HOW that happens is an entirely different question. It seems like we _might_ be able to support both fw versions for some limited time. If that is not possible for whatever reason, I will change the fw filenames, of course. (And people will complain about that, too. Because the rule for broadcom firmware is: Always complain about whatever you do. ;) ) The _just_ wanted to tell people about a serious change _before_ it happens. I'm not sure why this results in all kinds of complaints. Most probably, because the people don't want that to happen. ;-) Greetings, Rafael ___ Bcm43xx-dev mailing list Bcm43xx-dev@lists.berlios.de https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/bcm43xx-dev
Re: b43 will need a firmware upgrade soon
On Monday 07 January 2008 00:28:15 Rafael J. Wysocki wrote: On Monday, 7 of January 2008, Michael Buesch wrote: On Sunday 06 January 2008 23:01:00 John W. Linville wrote: On Sun, Jan 06, 2008 at 10:38:43PM +0100, Michael Buesch wrote: On Sunday 06 January 2008 22:35:51 Pavel Roskin wrote: Quoting Michael Buesch [EMAIL PROTECTED]: see fwpostfix module parameter Can we please avoid this annoyance this time? Go and complain at Broadcom please. Broadcom doesn't really have this problem, since they are free to include the binary firmware in their Windows/Mac/whatever drivers. If the driver needs different firmware, why not have it ask for different filenames? As I suggested elsewhere, this could be as simple as setting a default value for fwpostfix... I'm not sure why people are complaining about stuff that's not done, yet. I just said that we need an update to an incompatible firmware soon. HOW that happens is an entirely different question. It seems like we _might_ be able to support both fw versions for some limited time. If that is not possible for whatever reason, I will change the fw filenames, of course. (And people will complain about that, too. Because the rule for broadcom firmware is: Always complain about whatever you do. ;) ) The _just_ wanted to tell people about a serious change _before_ it happens. I'm not sure why this results in all kinds of complaints. Most probably, because the people don't want that to happen. ;-) People don't want N-PHY support? -- Greetings Michael. ___ Bcm43xx-dev mailing list Bcm43xx-dev@lists.berlios.de https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/bcm43xx-dev
Re: b43 will need a firmware upgrade soon
Quoting Rafael J. Wysocki [EMAIL PROTECTED]: People don't want N-PHY support? Well, as it sometimes is said the better is an enemy of the good. If they feel comfortable without the N-PHY, why would they want it? Still, if you can add the support for it as a feature that doesn't affect the people's working configurations, no one will complain. I really want N-PHY and I have hardware to test it on. It's just the word fwprefix that makes me allergic. -- Regards, Pavel Roskin ___ Bcm43xx-dev mailing list Bcm43xx-dev@lists.berlios.de https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/bcm43xx-dev
Re: b43 will need a firmware upgrade soon
On Monday 07 January 2008 00:51:55 Rafael J. Wysocki wrote: On Monday, 7 of January 2008, Michael Buesch wrote: On Monday 07 January 2008 00:28:15 Rafael J. Wysocki wrote: On Monday, 7 of January 2008, Michael Buesch wrote: On Sunday 06 January 2008 23:01:00 John W. Linville wrote: On Sun, Jan 06, 2008 at 10:38:43PM +0100, Michael Buesch wrote: On Sunday 06 January 2008 22:35:51 Pavel Roskin wrote: Quoting Michael Buesch [EMAIL PROTECTED]: see fwpostfix module parameter Can we please avoid this annoyance this time? Go and complain at Broadcom please. Broadcom doesn't really have this problem, since they are free to include the binary firmware in their Windows/Mac/whatever drivers. If the driver needs different firmware, why not have it ask for different filenames? As I suggested elsewhere, this could be as simple as setting a default value for fwpostfix... I'm not sure why people are complaining about stuff that's not done, yet. I just said that we need an update to an incompatible firmware soon. HOW that happens is an entirely different question. It seems like we _might_ be able to support both fw versions for some limited time. If that is not possible for whatever reason, I will change the fw filenames, of course. (And people will complain about that, too. Because the rule for broadcom firmware is: Always complain about whatever you do. ;) ) The _just_ wanted to tell people about a serious change _before_ it happens. I'm not sure why this results in all kinds of complaints. Most probably, because the people don't want that to happen. ;-) People don't want N-PHY support? Well, as it sometimes is said the better is an enemy of the good. If they feel comfortable without the N-PHY, why would they want it? Still, if you can add the support for it as a feature that doesn't affect the people's working configurations, no one will complain. Impossible, sorry. We are going to add support for new firmware, which will be needed for N-PHY, or we don't. And I think it's clear which way we are going. What's the problem with all of this? Other drivers change firmware to incompatible versions on a regular basis. Look at ipw2200. There was a time when they changed the firmware basically on every kernel release. That wasn't a problem. Why would it be a problem here? How the technical implementation of all that stuff works in the end is not up to this discussion. Maybe we can support both firmware in one driver for some limited time. Maybe we rename the firmware files once again. I think it's likely to end up with a driver supporting 2 fw versions for a few release cycles. But I simply can not tell you, yet. I just wanted to tell people that a firmware change is going to happen soon. Just informational stuff. Nothing people need to complain, suggest or argue about. -- Greetings Michael. ___ Bcm43xx-dev mailing list Bcm43xx-dev@lists.berlios.de https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/bcm43xx-dev
Re: b43 will need a firmware upgrade soon
On Mon, Jan 07, 2008 at 12:02:11AM +0100, Michael Buesch wrote: The _just_ wanted to tell people about a serious change _before_ it happens. I'm not sure why this results in all kinds of complaints. Don't be so inhuman... :-) (For those just joining us, that is an inside joke...) Please don't confuse suggestions (intended to be helpful) with complaints. John -- John W. Linville [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Bcm43xx-dev mailing list Bcm43xx-dev@lists.berlios.de https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/bcm43xx-dev
Re: b43 will need a firmware upgrade soon
2008/1/7, Michael Buesch [EMAIL PROTECTED]: People don't want N-PHY support? Well, if your definition of people is similar to my one, they definitely want it! :-) I think we are just a little afraid of _possible_ problem with a few kernels installed at one time. Sometimes I need to run basic kernel of my distro and use b43 with is included in it. On the other hand I want to test the newest kernel with improved b43 :) -- Rafał Miłecki ___ Bcm43xx-dev mailing list Bcm43xx-dev@lists.berlios.de https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/bcm43xx-dev
Re: b43 will need a firmware upgrade soon
On Sun, 06 Jan 2008 19:03:12 -0500 Pavel Roskin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Quoting Rafael J. Wysocki [EMAIL PROTECTED]: People don't want N-PHY support? Well, as it sometimes is said the better is an enemy of the good. If they feel comfortable without the N-PHY, why would they want it? Still, if you can add the support for it as a feature that doesn't affect the people's working configurations, no one will complain. I really want N-PHY and I have hardware to test it on. It's just the word fwprefix that makes me allergic. Please note that nobody suggested to use fwpostfix in order to support regular migration from a kernel version to another one. That was proposed as a convenient way in order to switch back and forth between two kernel versions. Did anybody ever complain about ipw2200 very frequent firmware changes between kernel versions (i.e. http://ipw2200.sourceforge.net/firmware.php)? This would be the second firmware change for bcm43xx/b43. Please also note then that having b43-fwcutter to rename firmware according to its capabilities could be disruptive too (as people already have a lot of fun by downloading unsupported firmwares, and this would just confuse the users even more). A big fat printk that tells the user that the firmware found in /lib/firmware is unsupported and displays a linuxwireless.org URL seems the best solution to me. But again, Michael wasn't even talking about one particular implementation, he just wanted to warn in advance about a likely firmware change in the future. I know that distros out there are having even more fun than users in messing up this sort of things, but this can't really be claimed to be our fault. -- Ciao Stefano ___ Bcm43xx-dev mailing list Bcm43xx-dev@lists.berlios.de https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/bcm43xx-dev
Re: b43 will need a firmware upgrade soon
On Monday 07 January 2008 01:12:25 Rafał Miłecki wrote: 2008/1/7, Michael Buesch [EMAIL PROTECTED]: People don't want N-PHY support? Well, if your definition of people is similar to my one, they definitely want it! :-) I think we are just a little afraid of _possible_ problem with a few kernels installed at one time. Sometimes I need to run basic kernel of my distro and use b43 with is included in it. On the other hand I want to test the newest kernel with improved b43 :) Don't worry about that. This will be possible, of course. Everybody on earth runs a similiar configuration. Even me. ;) -- Greetings Michael. ___ Bcm43xx-dev mailing list Bcm43xx-dev@lists.berlios.de https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/bcm43xx-dev
Re: b43 will need a firmware upgrade soon
Am Montag 07 Januar 2008 schrieb Michael Buesch: Still, if you can add the support for it as a feature that doesn't affect the people's working configurations, no one will complain. Impossible, sorry. We are going to add support for new firmware, which will be needed for N-PHY, or we don't. And I think it's clear which way we are going. N-PHY support is surely wanted, noone doubts that. What's the problem with all of this? Other drivers change firmware to incompatible versions on a regular basis. Look at ipw2200. There was a time when they changed the firmware basically on every kernel release. That wasn't a problem. Why would it be a problem here? The problem is _not_ to actually need a newer firmware for a newer kernel. That can be managed easily and was simple for the change bcm43xx - b43. However, being able to use different kernel version painlessly is a major feature. Modprobe cannot use different configs for different kernel versions, so the fwpostfix option doesn't help in userspace. The only work-around would be to change /lib/udev/firmware.agent to also use the kernel version when looping over possible firmware directories. Clumsy at best, especially since the driver knows best about the difference. I already suggested to make the ABI part of the directory name (maybe even kill fwpostfix for it, anyone actually using that one for real?). That's a one-minute change in the driver (one #define and one other one-liner in main.c) and an additional table field in fwcutter. You have to update the latter anyway to let it know about the new firmware files, anyway. With that, you can require a different firmware ABI on kernel version change and possible noone will complain. And you don't have to support multiple ABIs at the same time. HS ___ Bcm43xx-dev mailing list Bcm43xx-dev@lists.berlios.de https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/bcm43xx-dev
