Re: [RFC 0/1] Loading optional firmware

On Fri, Mar 9, 2018 at 2:12 PM, Andres Rodriguez [off-list ref] wrote:

Hi Everyone,

Wanted to inquire your opinions about the following matter.

We are experiencing some end user confusion regarding the following messages
being printed to dmesg:

[    0.571324] amdgpu 0000:01:00.0: Direct firmware load for amdgpu/polaris10_pfp_2.bin failed with error -2
[    0.571338] amdgpu 0000:01:00.0: Direct firmware load for amdgpu/polaris10_me_2.bin failed with error -2
[    0.571348] amdgpu 0000:01:00.0: Direct firmware load for amdgpu/polaris10_ce_2.bin failed with error -2
[    0.571366] amdgpu 0000:01:00.0: Direct firmware load for amdgpu/polaris10_mec_2.bin failed with error -2
[    0.571404] amdgpu 0000:01:00.0: Direct firmware load for amdgpu/polaris10_mec2_2.bin failed with error -2

These firmware blobs are optional. If they aren't available, the graphics card
can still function normally. But having these messages causes the user to think
their current problems are related to missing firmware.

It would be great if we could have a mechanism that enabled us to load a
firmware blob without any dmesg spew in case of file not found errors.Currently
request_firmware_direct() implements this functionality, but as a drawback it
forfeits the usermodehelper fallback path.

Yeah, this is a common enough reported type of feature request that I
think it makes sense to add now. I'll reply to your patch with a bit
more details.

 Luis