On Thu, Nov 23, 2023 at 08:26:32PM +0000, Stuart Henderson wrote:
> On 2023/11/23 19:38, Stefan Sperling wrote:
> > It is possible that our driver is trying to use an incompatible
> > firmware image on this particular device. Which firmware file name
> > is loaded by the iwlwifi driver on a recent Linux distribution?
> > Are we loading the same one?
>
> Seems the first liveusb image that I picked up (Debian 12.2.0) isn't
> bleeding edge enough. Apparently it is actually an AX101.
Unfortunately, product names like AX101 don't mean anything in terms of
mapping a firmware image to a device. This is the collection of variables
used in the device lookup table:
struct iwx_dev_info {
uint16_t device;
uint16_t subdevice;
uint16_t mac_type;
uint16_t rf_type;
uint8_t mac_step;
uint8_t rf_id;
uint8_t no_160;
uint8_t cores;
uint8_t cdb;
uint8_t jacket;
const struct iwx_device_cfg *cfg;
};
Given all this info, a partial or complete match will eventually
result in a decision about which firmware image to load.
I suppose you can now see why it is easy to miscategorize a device
by accident. I don't know why Intel is doing it this way. Perhaps
they are running out of PCI product IDs.
Anyway, the best way to figure out which firmware is needed is to run
a version of the Linux driver that supports your device.
If your Linux distro is not bleeding-edge enough, try building the driver
from the backport-iwlwifi repository which is generally newer than mainline
Linux:
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/iwlwifi/backport-iwlwifi.git/
If the device is very new it is possible that further driver-side changes
will be required to get it to work.
