[gentoo-user] Re: Firmware exists but fails to load

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 08/15/2011 02:59 PM, Adam Carter wrote:
>> Is the firmware path set correctly in the kernel config?  In "Device
>> Drivers->Generic Driver Options", set "Firmware blobs root directory" to
>> "/lib/firmware" and build a new kernel.
>
> [...]
>
> Firmware blobs root directory is EXTRA_FIRMWARE_DIR which is only
> available once i enable EXTRA_FIRMWARE, but the help for that says;
> "This option allows firmware to be built into the kernel, for the
>
>   │
>    │ cases where the user either cannot or doesn't want to provide it
> from
>        │
>    │ userspace at runtime"
>
> So that's a workaround, not a fix, but it works so it'll do. Thanks.

It's not a workaround, but how it's supposed to work.  "Loading from 
userspace" means using a user-space program to load the firmware.  This 
is not what you're trying to do, since you don't have such a program. 
You're trying to have the kernel itself load the firmware, and the 
EXTRA_FIRMWARE mechanism is how this is done.

Your other option is writing a userspace program that reads the firmware 
after the kernel has booted and patches it into the hardware.  But why 
would you want to do something like that anyway?