Add Firmware images to INSTALL kernels

[thor0505%comcast.net@localhost]

Hello all, 

Although my question is specific to the Raspberry Pi, I can imagine anyone who 
has specific network cards- or hardware requiring firmware during installation- 
asking this question.

I have a Raspberry Pi Model A, which does not contain onboard Ethernet. In 
order to get a network connection, I use a USB dongle which is supported by the 
urtwn device driver. When I boot an install kernel, my urtwn hardware is 
recognized, but the interface cannot be brought up because the firmware is 
missing. This prevents me from reliably continuing an install; as of at least 
yesterday, mounting devices in the RPI kernel is broken (will file a PR in the 
next few hours if I can't duplicate the issue in the current HEAD), so grabbing 
local sets from a mounted drive is impossible. 

According to http://www.daemon-systems.org/man/urtwn.4.html, the firmware for 
urtwn needs to be installed in /libdata/firmware/if_urtwn/rtl8192cfw.bin when 
bringing up a network interface. So far, I have not found a way to customize 
install images to add the firmware into the install image/ramdisk by reviewing 
the source over the past hour. In fact, I have not found any information in 
manual pages or the mailing list about whether there is a documented way of 
adding firmware or extra files to an installation, beyond having the option to 
choose MAKEDEV targets in the obsolete i386 bootfloppy-tiny floppies.

Editing $SRC_ROOT/distrib/evbarm/instkernel/sshramdisk/mtree.conf seems to be 
the way to add the relevant directory into the ramdisk. However, is there a way 
to tell ./build.sh or the Makefiles to add the relevant firmware as well into 
these directories? Is modifying the source to sysinst (which I know can be used 
to change the default kernel's name in the install prompt) the only way of 
adding this feature?

Again, thanks for any help anyone can give me!

Sincerely,
William D. Jones