Re: [GIT] Networking

Linus Torvalds [off-list ref] :

On Thu, Jan 6, 2011 at 12:20 PM, David Miller [off-list ref] wrote:

quoted

Plus the usual spattering of wireless, bluetooth, and wired driver
updates.

Grr.

Oops.

[...]

[torvalds@i5 linux]$ git bisect good
bca03d5f32c8ee9b5cfa1d32640a63fded6cb3c0 is the first bad commit
commit bca03d5f32c8ee9b5cfa1d32640a63fded6cb3c0
Author: fran?ois romieu [off-list ref]
Date:   Mon Jan 3 15:07:31 2011 +0000

    r8169: remove the firmware of RTL8111D.

    The binary file of the firmware is moved to linux-firmware repository.
    The firmwares are rtl_nic/rtl8168d-1.fw and rtl_nic/rtl8168d-2.fw.
    The driver goes along if the firmware couldn't be found. However, it
    is suggested to be done with the suitable firmware.

    Some wrong PHY parameters are directly corrected in the driver.

    Simple firmware checking added per Ben Hutchings suggestion.

    Signed-off-by: Hayes Wang [off-list ref]
    Signed-off-by: Francois Romieu [off-list ref]
    Cc: Ben Hutchings [off-list ref]
    Signed-off-by: David S. Miller [off-list ref]

and the behavior is very broken: it just hangs at boot-time. No
messages from the driver (certainly not any messages about missing
firmware), no nothing. The thing is just hung.

On a working setup, I have


  [    1.595071] r8169 Gigabit Ethernet driver 2.3LK-NAPI loaded
  [    1.595114] r8169 0000:01:00.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 19 (level, low) -> IRQ 19
  [    1.595174] r8169 0000:01:00.0: setting latency timer to 64
  [    1.595227] r8169 0000:01:00.0: irq 42 for MSI/MSI-X
  [    1.595770] r8169 0000:01:00.0: eth0: RTL8168d/8111d at
0xffffc90000068000, e0:cb:4e:95:1a:d7, XID 083000c0 IRQ 42

  ...
  [    7.985917] r8169 0000:01:00.0: eth0: link up
  [    7.987525] r8169 0000:01:00.0: eth0: link up

while on a non-working setup, I get that XID line, and after that a
few other init routines continue to show up (probably just
multi-threaded initcalls), but the box is dead.

Quite frankly, that commit looks broken anyway. It doesn't just switch
to the firmware loader, it also seems to change other things (ie
removed some mdio writes, added others).

It was described in the commit message as
[...]
    Some wrong PHY parameters are directly corrected in the driver.

What's going on?

The firmware is supposed to be optional. The (relevant) 8168 have
been reported to work without it. I have tested it with my hardware
(RTL_GIGA_MAC_VER_26 (== your), RTL_GIGA_MAC_VER_25 + some others),
seen the "r8169 0000:02:00.0: eth0: unable to apply firmware patch"
message and noticed that the card was actually working. Though I did
not try a non-modular build, this was not exactly a five minutes
test.

I had no technical reason [*] to turn the firmware mandatory and screw
distro-maintainers who have decided that the firmware is not free enough.

[*] The small "I will regret it" voices in my head do not count as
    technical reasons.

[...]

Not acceptable. I'm ok with an external firmware repository, but only
if it _works_. Right now it doesn't. It just seems to cause silent
failures: there were no warnings about missing firmware at ANY time.
Not build-time, not run-time.

?

The driver is supposed to display a message at KERN_WARNING.

-- 
Ueimor