>> 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.
linux-firmware is blocked by radeon-ucode and rt61-firmware, but now that I look closer I realize that ifconfig doesn't show an eth0 interface at all even though lspci -v shows: Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller ... Kernel driver in use: r8169 Shouldn't the eth0 interface appear in ifconfig once the r8169 driver is loaded? dmesg has no mention of eth0 or r8169. >> 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 Right again. The contents of /lib/firmware/b43 and /lib/firmware/brcm are completely different, but you think either one will work with a b43 device? - Grant
