On 1 August 2014 at 19:41, Rafał Miłecki <zaj...@gmail.com> wrote: > Installing a firmware was always kind of challenge for end users. > There were many tries of solving this: > 1) Distribution wiki pages with descriptions > 2) b43 wiki page trying to handle the most common distros > 3) Extra non-free packages > 4) Scripts like install_bcm43xx_firmware in openSUSE > 5) Scripts like postinst in Debian > Way too many of them. Way too complex. > > My idea is to add a helper script to the b43-tools / fwcutter and put > it during install in $(PREFIX)/bin/. This way we will know that every > user who installed b43-fwcutter also owns our script. Then we just > tell our users "hey, fire your b43_install_firmware" (or whatever). > > Of course distros still we be able to make it automatic. For example > Debian's postinst could simply call this script and simplify its > postinst. Same for RPMs. > > [The second part] > > Now, if you like my idea above, there is one more thing worth > considering. Offline firmware installation. It's not that common, but > there still appear ppl who can't use Ethernet cable and don't have > another Linux machine to extract firmware using it. For them our > script would be useless. > > So my another idea is to make our script accept passing path to the > driver as a command line argument. So one can download > broadcom-wl-6.30.163.46.tar.bz2, put it on a USB flash and call > b43_install_firmware /mnt/usb/broadcom-wl-6.30.163.46.tar.bz2 > We should also remember to allows passing other archives as an > argument (wl_apsta-3.130.20.0.o at least!). > > > Do you like this idea? Could someone handle this?
I'd like to resurrect this idea. So far I've prepared wiki page describing the problem and our plan, see: https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/users/drivers/b43/firmware Is there anything else you would like to add? Before I start contacting distribution maintainers? -- Rafał _______________________________________________ b43-dev mailing list b43-dev@lists.infradead.org http://lists.infradead.org/mailman/listinfo/b43-dev
