2014-02-06 9:19 GMT+01:00 grarpamp <grarp...@gmail.com>: > On Thu, Feb 6, 2014 at 1:10 AM, Rafał Miłecki <zaj...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> How does something like '6.30.102.9 (r366174)' on the wrapper >>> relate to its corresponding internal '784.2'? What are those >>> strings each describing? >> >> Broadcom's closed source driver embeds firmware in the driver. They >> don't request it from the user space (ex. from /lib/firmware/). >> However they develop driver and firmware independently, so they use >> different numbering for them. >> >> You can't really say what firmware version is embedded in the driver >> until you load this firmware to the WiFi card and read the version >> back. >> >> What we do is downloading closed source driver (that was compiled for >> some completely different system/architecture) and extract firmware >> from it (which is a tiny part of the total size). We extract it to the >> /lib/firmware/ and then b43 can use it. > > I should say i understand Broadcom makes a closed source > linux driver: > http://www.broadcom.com/support/802.11/linux_sta.php > which I don't think includes the card firmware, but I'll > try to unpack it again and look closer. Even if it does > i don't see any reference on b43 site to fw ever being > cut out of it and used with b43/insmod, only to blobs > from GPL being used that way.
It has to include firmware, it's just (as I said) compiled into the binary. We don't extract firmware from Linux STA because it wasn't available for a long time, it was only recently updated and you can usually find newer firmware in routers (MIPS/ARM) drivers. > What I didn't understand was if I run strings on wl_apsta.o > I get the first number, and b43 prints the second number > when loading the firmware. I didn't get what those different > numbers in the same .o/.fw file represented. And I'm > not sure if the first number is present in the loaded firmware > to also be printed on load. I told you. The other number (784.2, etc.) is what firmware reports. You have to upload firmware to the WiFi card and read it back. Since the whole firmware in a blob (embedded in the driver), above number (784.2) isn't visible as a string. _______________________________________________ b43-dev mailing list b43-dev@lists.infradead.org http://lists.infradead.org/mailman/listinfo/b43-dev
