Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2018 18:20:36 -0500
From: Drew DeVault <sir@cmpwn.com>
To: "A. Wilcox" <awilfox@adelielinux.org>
Cc: alpine-devel@lists.alpinelinux.org
Subject: Re: [alpine-devel] Splitting up linux-firmware?
Message-ID: <20180106232036.GA14607@homura>
References: <4d19a51c-3eba-9775-0208-4d87da66effc@bitmessage.ch>
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 <5fec5490-b745-8c3a-2d21-f59d3a6f8925@adelielinux.org>
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On 2018-01-06  5:16 PM, A. Wilcox wrote:
> There is a userspace firmware loader helper option in the kernel I think
> (or maybe that was for modules?), but I don't think it'd be good to hang
> up the boot process to download relevant firmware files.  Also, you have
> to think about people who do not want firmware.  For example, I have one
> system with a Broadcom WLAN chip but no other hardware requiring
> firmware, so I just use it wired and run it fully libre.

In theory this wouldn't slow down the boot process if you had the ones
you need cached (and you should 1000% have the ones you need cached). It
might not make sense to download them on the fly, maybe, just write down
the failures and add a command to sort it out.

> "download" "offline".
> 
> I mean, you can have a cache of firmware packages installed, but that's
> basically the same as just having the large linux-firmware package
> installed.

Not a full cache, just of the firmware you need.

> I don't know the legalities of redistributing linux-firmware (I believe
> it is "closed source, but freely distributable").  But beyond that, it
> would mean that the Alpine ISO is no longer free/libre software.  I
> don't agree that this is a good idea.  Perhaps there could *be* a spin
> with firmware on the CD for people who know they need firmware for the
> network or whatever, but it shouldn't be the default IMO.

This is a good point.

> This is a decent idea for such a 'firmware CD spin'.  I don't know if
> there is a 'lsfw' utility or such that can see what firmware is loaded,
> but if so, that'd be all that would really be necessary.

I don't think there is, but hooking into the userspace loader should
make it pretty trivial to do this.


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