> That fixed it. Thank you very much. I'm a little puzzled because I > don't get the "unable to apply firmware patch" messages on my desktop > which also uses the r8169 driver and doesn't have linux-firmware > installed.
Maybe you have an older firmware installed from a different package? Run emerge -p linux-firmware on that box to see if there's a blocker. > I guess linux-firmware is a package released by the kernel folks > containing certain firmware blobs? It looks like rt73 is in there but > not b43. Maybe these? /lib/firmware/brcm/bcm4329-fullmac-4.bin /lib/firmware/brcm/bcm4329-fullmac-4.txt /lib/firmware/brcm/bcm43xx-0.fw /lib/firmware/brcm/bcm43xx_hdr-0.fw /lib/firmware/LICENCE.broadcom_bcm43xx
