Bugzilla Bug 129882

When last updating my kernel I noticed that my wlan0 iface was gone so I
re-emerged the at76c503a package so I'd get my modules back, and on loading the
modules I still got no wlan0 device (nor any other network device that could be
my atmel wlan card)
dmesg:

/var/tmp/portage/at76c503a-0.12_beta23-r3/work/at76c503a-0.12.beta23.orig/at76c503-fw_skel.c:
downloading firmware atmel_at76c503-rfmd.bin
/var/tmp/portage/at76c503a-0.12_beta23-r3/work/at76c503a-0.12.beta23.orig/at76c503-fw_skel.c:
firmware atmel_at76c503-rfmd.bin not found.
/var/tmp/portage/at76c503a-0.12_beta23-r3/work/at76c503a-0.12.beta23.orig/at76c503-fw_skel.c:
You may need to download the firmware from http://www.thekelleys.org.uk/atmel
or ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/at76c503a/firmware/

so apparently the module couldn't find the firmware binary.

a Google search turned out some debian folks with the same problems who
suggested the following:

Workaround:
  echo /sbin/hotplug > /proc/sys/kernel/hotplug

With that in place the Module finds and loads the firmware correctly.

So I'm not so sure where this bug belongs, because I can't tell what else on my
system changed since my wlan0 last worked without the need for that workaround,
since I rarely reboot that machine.

Versions installed:

sys-apps/hotplug-20040923-r1
net-wireless/at76c503a-0.12_beta23-r3
net-wireless/atmel-firmware-1.3  USE="usb -pcmcia"

emerge --info follows:
Portage 2.1_pre7-r5 (default-linux/x86/2005.0, gcc-3.4.5, glibc-2.3.5-r3,
2.6.15.1 i686)
=================================================================
System uname: 2.6.15.1 i686 VIA Samuel 2
Gentoo Base System version 1.6.14
distcc 2.18.3 i586-pc-linux-gnu (protocols 1 and 2) (default port 3632)
[disabled]
dev-lang/python:     2.3.5-r2, 2.4.2
sys-apps/sandbox:    1.2.12
sys-devel/autoconf:  2.13, 2.59-r7
sys-devel/automake:  1.4_p6, 1.5, 1.6.3, 1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r3, 1.9.6-r1
sys-devel/binutils:  2.16.1
sys-devel/libtool:   1.5.22
virtual/os-headers:  2.6.11-r2
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86"
AUTOCLEAN="yes"
CBUILD="i586-pc-linux-gnu"
CFLAGS="-Os -mtune=i586 -m3dnow -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer"
CHOST="i586-pc-linux-gnu"
CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3/share/config
/usr/lib/X11/xkb /usr/share/config /usr/share/texmf/dvipdfm/config/
/usr/share/texmf/dvips/config/ /usr/share/texmf/tex/generic/config/
/usr/share/texmf/tex/platex/config/ /usr/share/texmf/xdvi/ /var/qmail/control"
CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/eselect/compiler /etc/gconf /etc/terminfo /etc/env.d"
CXXFLAGS="-Os -mtune=i586 -m3dnow -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer"
DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles"
FEATURES="autoconfig distlocks metadata-transfer sandbox sfperms strict"
GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://192.168.1.1/gentoo/ http://gentoo.inode.at/
http://linux.rz.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/download/gentoo-mirror/
rsync://mirrors.sec.informatic.tu-darmstadt.de/gentoo
ftp://ftp.tu-clausthal.de/pub/linux/gentoo/ http://gentoo.oregonstate.edu/
http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/gentoo/"
LINGUAS="de en jp"
MAKEOPTS="-j4"
PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages"
PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp"
PORTDIR="/usr/portage"
PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage"
SYNC="rsync://192.168.1.1/gentoo-portage"
USE="x86 3dnow X aac alsa apm audiofile avi berkdb bitmap-fonts bzip2 crypt
cups directfb doc dri dvb dvd dvdread eds emboss encode expat fam fbcon
font-server foomaticdb fortran gd gdbm gif gnome gpm gstreamer gtk gtk2
imagemagick imlib ipv6 isdnlog jpeg kde latex lcms ldap libg++ libwww logrotate
mad math matroska md5sum mhash mikmod mmx mng motif mp3 mpeg mysql ncurses
netboot nls ogg oggvorbis opengl oss pam pdflib perl png postgres pppd python
qt quicktime readline samba sdl sensord snmp spell ssl svga tcpd tetex theora
tiff truetype truetype-fonts type1 type1-fonts ucs4 udev underscores unicode
usb v4l v4l2 vorbis win32codecs xml2 xmms xprint xv xvid zlib elibc_glibc
kernel_linux linguas_de linguas_en linguas_jp userland_GNU"
Unset:  ASFLAGS, CTARGET, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, INSTALL_MASK, LANG, LC_ALL,
LDFLAGS

Further reading: 
http://lists.debian.org/debian-kernel/2005/03/msg00232.html
http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-5164.html

so, what are we supposed to do in the gentoo ebuilds for you?

btw, I removed you from CC, you do not need that when you are the reporter :)

@mobile - please drop the sys-apps/hotplug dependency from
net-wireless/at76c503a and net-wireless/atmel-firmware wrt Bug 147006 and Bug
145809. It just breaks the thing, udev handles hotplug and firmware loading on
it's own.

Suggested new dependency would be something like:

|| ( >=sys-fs/udev-096 >=sys-apps/hotplug-20040923 )

thanks, changed both to ||