Hello, The RTL8192CE device seems to work fine without any firmware, so you may make it fully optional, removing dependency on FW_LOADER. Of course that require some patching, but if I understood the driver internals correctly, simple complete(&rtlpriv->firmware_loading_complete); would be enough when firmware loading machinery is unavailable, that is, when request_firmware_nowait returns -EINVAL (currently that may only happen in improperly configured or patched kernels, like Linux-libre; see attached messages for more information) Of course I will try to fix Linux-libre “deblobbing” technique, as it should never break anything that may work without a firmware. But anyway, if a device and its driver may work without a certain kernel feature, that feature should not be selected, I think. Lobachevskii Vitalii
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- To: linux-libre@xxxxxxxxx
- Subject: Inaccurate deblobbing breaks rtl8192ce
- From: number Zero <silverunicorn2011@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2016 01:16:48 +0300
- User-agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:45.0) Gecko/20100101 Icedove/45.1.0
The rtl8192ce driver as present in linux-libre don’t work for me at all. However, after I made it to ignore the EINVAL error from the reject_firmware_nowait function (in drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtlwifi/rtl8192ce/sw.c), it works fine. I could send you the patch, but don’t think that’s the right solution. Really, are there any reasons for reject_firmware_nowait to return -EINVAL? Original function, request_firmware_nowait, returns non-zero only in extreme conditions, like out-of-memory or module being unloaded. Unlike request_firmware, it doesn’t fail when firmware is absent. So shouldn’t the reject_firmware_nowait function behave as if the requested firmware merely absent?
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--- Begin Message ---
- To: number Zero <silverunicorn2011@xxxxxxxxx>
- Subject: Re: Inaccurate deblobbing breaks rtl8192ce
- From: Alexandre Oliva <lxoliva@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 16:14:01 -0300
- Cc: linux-libre@xxxxxxxxx
- In-reply-to: <321381b3-5dea-f16a-56cb-11120d4a38ef@yandex.ru> (number Zero's message of "Sun, 14 Aug 2016 01:16:48 +0300")
- Organization: Free thinker, not speaking for FSF Latin America
- References: <321381b3-5dea-f16a-56cb-11120d4a38ef@yandex.ru>
- User-agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.5 (gnu/linux)
Hi, Thanks for your report! On Aug 13, 2016, number Zero <silverunicorn2011@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > However, after I made it to ignore the EINVAL error from the > reject_firmware_nowait function (in > drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtlwifi/rtl8192ce/sw.c), it works fine. Interesting. Can you check that this remains true even after a full power cycle, as in, that it's not a blob loaded by a previous blobbed kernel that remains it to work in your setting? (if you never had the blob around, or never used a blobbed kernel, just say so, and I'll be happy enough about the conclusion ;-) > Really, are there any reasons for reject_firmware_nowait to return > -EINVAL? Yes. It the error code to indicate to the caller that the firmware loading functionality is not avaialble. It indicates the callback supplied by the caller will not be called, so the caller itself should take care of e.g. returning any temporary memory the callback would have released. If the driver works even if request_firmware_nowait returns such an error, then it ought to tolerate this return code. > So shouldn’t the reject_firmware_nowait function behave as if the > requested firmware merely absent? Given the multiple cases in which drivers were "surprised" by this return code, I guess we could try to rework reject_firmware_nowait so as to actually call the callback, signalling the unsuccessful completion of the request. Would you like to give that a try? Or perhaps you'd prefer to report the bug to the rtl8192ce maintainers, so that they could fix their driver so as to work (as it should) even when the firmware loading configuration option is disabled? Thanks, -- Alexandre Oliva, freedom fighter http://FSFLA.org/~lxoliva/ You must be the change you wish to see in the world. -- Gandhi Be Free! -- http://FSFLA.org/ FSF Latin America board member Free Software Evangelist|Red Hat Brasil GNU Toolchain Engineer
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