firmware discussion

[Imre Vadász]

Since we don't have all the WPA authentication stuff built into the kernel
(we utilize wpa_supplicant in userland), there isn't any reasonable usecase
for booting with a network filesystem as root over wlan.
But actually network boot over wlan without an initrd might even be
impossible since we probably can't create the wlan0 interface during kernel
boot at the moment.
NFS root over wlan is only supposed to work with a custom initrd.

All current wlan drivers except iwm, will only request their firmware when
enabling the interface, so they should be fine waiting for userland to
deliver the firmware during a regular boot.

Thanks,
Imre

On Friday, May 26, 2017, Jan Sucan <sucanjan at fit.cvut.cz> wrote:

> On 26.05.2017 08:25, Sepherosa Ziehau wrote:
>
>> On Fri, May 26, 2017 at 2:08 PM, Jan Sucan <sucanjan at fit.cvut.cz> wrote:
>>
>>> Hello sephe,
>>>
>>> thank you for the question. I am thinking of keeping a part of the old
>>> functionality. Firmware for those devices could be compiled into the
>>> kernel
>>> (by default).
>>>
>>> I think, this concerns only the isp driver for Qlogic based SCSI and
>>> FibreChannel SCSI Host Adapters.
>>>
>>> Could you please point me to other drivers, which will need the same
>>> treatment?
>>>
>> e.g. mxge(4).
>>
>> I am not quite sure about other wlan drivers.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> sephe
>>
>
> Oh, I think I get the point now. :-) It will be able for firmware images
> to be compiled into the kernel.
>
> Thanks
> jan
>
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