Re: wpi0: fatal firmware error

[Béla <bela.nam.bsd%gmail.com@localhost>]

BTW, I took the time to try out the i386 port of NetBSD 6.1.2 on the
same machine, oddly enough, the wifi card works just fine. Apparently
firmware loading for the 3945abg wifi card is only problematic on the
amd64 port.
I wonder why though.

On 11/06/2013 07:32, Dave B wrote:> On Wed, Nov 06, 2013 at 04:38:35AM
+0100, B?la wrote:
> ...
>>> Are the firmware files really installed where they are expected to be?
>>> The path is either "/usr/pkg/libdata/firmware/if_wpi" or
>>> "/usr/pkg/libdata/if_wpi", the latter being where the package
>>> effectively installs the files. See also the output of "sysctl
>>> hw.firmware.path" to confirm.
>>
>> sysctl hw.firmware.path outputs: hw.firmware.path =
>>
/libdata/firmware:/usr/libdata/firmware:/usr/pkg/libdata/firmware:/usr/pkg/libdata
>>
>> the iwlwifi-3945.ucode firmware file is in /usr/pkg/libdata/if_wpi
> ...
>
>   The wpi firmware has been included in the NetBSD core
> distribution for awhile; or at least it's present--without any
> pkgsrc version installed--on my 5.2_STABLE i386 and 6.1_STABLE
> amd64 machines in
>
>     /libdata/firmware/if_wpi/*iwlwifi-3945.ucode
>
>   Do you have it too?  What files do you have in that directory, if
> any?
>
>> Also, I noticed something odd, when I remove the firmware, I still get
>> "wpi0: fatal firmware error" instead of "wpi0: could not read firmware
>> file" or "wpi0: could not load firmware" as the manuel suggest error
>> messagges should be...
>
>   Was this with the pkgsrc package entirely and cleanly removed?
> (Or just with the iwlwifi-3945.ucode file manually deleted from the
> /usr/pkg/libdata/firmware/ directory)?
>
> Cheers, -Dave
>


On 11/06/2013 07:08, Robert Elz wrote:
>     Date:        Wed, 06 Nov 2013 04:38:35 +0100
>     From:        =?UTF-8?B?QsOpbGE=?= <bela.nam.bsd%gmail.com@localhost>
>     Message-ID:  <5279B9BB.5030901%gmail.com@localhost>
> 
> I have a Dell laptop with that card...
> 
>   | sysctl hw.firmware.path outputs: hw.firmware.path =
>   | 
> /libdata/firmware:/usr/libdata/firmware:/usr/pkg/libdata/firmware:/usr/pkg/libdata
>   | 
>   | the iwlwifi-3945.ucode firmware file is in /usr/pkg/libdata/if_wpi
> 
> but I put (manually copied/moved) the firmware to /libdata/firmware/if_wpi
> 
> The reason is that /usr/pkg (for me) isn't mounted when the firmware load
> is performed, so it doesn't get found there.   If your /usr/pkg isn't on
> the root filesystem, and you don't have its filesytem (and any others needed,
> which would mean /usr if /usr/pkg is separatly mounted) listed in
> critical_filesystems_local in /etc/rc.conf then you'll most likely need
> to do the same - it can be the easy way to be safe anyway (stuff needed
> to make the hardware work is better placed on the root filesystem than
> anywhere else, regardless of how you attempt to force early mounting.)
> 
> You can verify if this is likely to be the problem easily, just
> 
> ls -lu /usr/pkg/libdata/if_wpi
> 
> then reboot, and repeat the ls.   If the access time (which is the time shown
> with ls -lu) hasn't altered, then the file is not being accessed, which almost
> certainly means that it isn't present when the access is attempted.
> 
> kre
> 
> ps: for me with that card (and often slightly flakey wireless access - I
> push the distance limits sometimes) I tend to need to restart wpa_supplicant
> from time to time, I have a script that watches if the wireless network
> is connected, and if not, restarts wpa_supplicant, and if needed dhclient
> (dhcpcd would probably notice the link down/up and do its thing itself,
> but I haven't switched that system to dhcpcd yet.)
>