Bug 110733 – Statically compiled ipw2100 driver does not find firmware

• Product: Gentoo Linux
• Status: RESOLVED UPSTREAM

[Description Sebastian Bergmann (RETIRED) 2005-10-28 10:14:32 UTC]

The in-kernel ipw2100 driver of Linux 2.6.14 (gentoo-sources-2.6.14) does not
find the firmware provided by net-wireless/ipw2100-firmware.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1.
2.
3.

Actual Results:  
ipw2100: Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2100 Network Driver, 1.1.0
ipw2100: Copyright(c) 2003-2004 Intel Corporation
ipw2100: Detected Intel PRO/Wireless 2100 Network Connection
ipw2100: eth1: Firmware 'ipw2100-1.3.fw' not available or load failed.
ipw2100: eth1: ipw2100_get_firmware failed: -2
ipw2100: eth1: Failed to power on the adapter.
ipw2100: eth1: Failed to start the firmware.
ipw2100Error calling register_netdev.
ipw2100: probe of 0000:02:0a.0 failed with error -5


Portage 2.0.53_rc6 (default-linux/x86/2005.1, gcc-3.4.4, glibc-2.3.5-r3,
2.6.14-gentoo i686)
=================================================================
System uname: 2.6.14-gentoo i686 Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 1500MHz
Gentoo Base System version 1.12.0_pre9
dev-lang/python:     2.4.2
sys-apps/sandbox:    1.2.13
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:   1.5.20
virtual/os-headers:  2.6.11-r2
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86 ~x86"
AUTOCLEAN="yes"
CBUILD="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
CFLAGS="-march=pentium-m -O2 -pipe"
CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3/share/config
/usr/lib/X11/xkb /usr/lib/mozilla/defaults/pref /usr/share/config
/var/qmail/control"
CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/terminfo /etc/texmf/web2c /etc/env.d"
CXXFLAGS="-march=pentium-m -O2 -pipe"
DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles"
FEATURES="autoaddcvs autoconfig cvs digest distlocks fixpackages sandbox sfperms
sign strict"
GENTOO_MIRRORS="ftp://sunsite.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/pub/Linux/gentoo
ftp://trumpetti.atm.tut.fi/gentoo http://gentoo.oregonstate.edu
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/gentoo"
LC_ALL="en_US.utf8"
LINGUAS="de"
PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages"
PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp"
PORTDIR="/usr/portage"
PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage /usr/local/gentopia"
SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage"
USE="x86 X a52 aac acpi alsa avi berkdb bitmap-fonts browserplugin cairo cdr
crypt cups curl dbus dvd dvdr dvdread eds emboss encode esd exif fame flac
foomaticdb gdbm gif glitz gnome gpm gstreamer gtk gtk2 hal howl imagemagick
imlib ipv6 java jpeg libg++ libwww lzo mad matroska mikmod mjpeg mmx mng mono
mozilla moznocompose moznoirc moznomail mp3 mpeg ncurses nls nomotif nptl
nsplugin nvidia ogg oggvorbis opengl oss pam pdflib perl png python quicktime
readline spell sqlite sse sse2 ssl svg tcpd tetex theora tiff truetype
truetype-fonts type1-fonts udev unicode usb vorbis win32codecs wmf xml2 xv xvid
zlib linguas_de userland_GNU kernel_linux elibc_glibc"
Unset:  ASFLAGS, CTARGET, LANG, LDFLAGS, MAKEOPTS

[Comment 1 Sebastian Bergmann (RETIRED) 2005-10-28 10:29:47 UTC]

As requested by dsd_:

>>> Merging net-wireless/ipw2100-firmware-1.3 to /
--- /lib/
--- /lib/firmware/
>>> /lib/firmware/ipw2100-1.3.fw
>>> /lib/firmware/ipw2100-1.3-i.fw
>>> /lib/firmware/ipw2100-1.3-p.fw
>>> /lib/firmware/ipw2100-1.3-LICENSE
>>> Safely unmerging already-installed instance...
--- !mtime obj /lib/firmware/ipw2100-1.3.fw
--- !mtime obj /lib/firmware/ipw2100-1.3-p.fw
--- !mtime obj /lib/firmware/ipw2100-1.3-i.fw
--- !mtime obj /lib/firmware/ipw2100-1.3-LICENSE
--- !empty dir /lib/firmware
--- !empty dir /lib
>>> original instance of package unmerged safely.
>>> Regenerating /etc/ld.so.cache...
>>> net-wireless/ipw2100-firmware-1.3 merged.

[Comment 2 Henrik Brix Andersen 2005-10-28 14:00:22 UTC]

What does `grep ^FIRMWARE_DIR /etc/hotplug/firmware.agent` say?

Does the external net-wireless/ipw2100 driver load the firmware correctly?

[Comment 3 Sebastian Bergmann (RETIRED) 2005-10-28 14:37:12 UTC]

wopr-mobile ~ # grep ^FIRMWARE_DIR /etc/hotplug/firmware.agent
FIRMWARE_DIR=/lib/firmware

The external net-wireless/ipw2100 driver loaded the firmware correctly with
Linux 2.6.13, haven't tested with Linux 2.6.14, yet.

[Comment 4 Henrik Brix Andersen 2005-10-29 04:26:05 UTC]

Please try with CONFIG_IPW2100=m

[Comment 5 Sebastian Bergmann (RETIRED) 2005-10-29 04:51:55 UTC]

CONFIG_IPW2100=m works:

  ipw2100: Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2100 Network Driver, 1.1.0
  ipw2100: Copyright(c) 2003-2004 Intel Corporation
  ipw2100: Detected Intel PRO/Wireless 2100 Network Connection
  eth1 (WE) : Driver using old /proc/net/wireless support, please fix driver !

[Comment 6 Henrik Brix Andersen 2005-10-29 04:54:26 UTC]

Reopening.

[Comment 7 Henrik Brix Andersen 2005-10-29 05:03:06 UTC]

I suspect the statically compiled ipw2100 driver attempts to load the firmware
before the root filesystem is mounted. Can you please check your dmesg and see
if this is the cause?

[Comment 8 Krzysztof Pawlik (RETIRED) 2005-10-29 05:09:27 UTC]

In my case (ipw2200, 2.6.14-ck1, ipw2200-firmware-2.2) that was the case.
/lib/firmware was not accessible. I suspect that ipw2100 is much the same.

[Comment 9 Sebastian Bergmann (RETIRED) 2005-10-29 07:03:28 UTC]

Yes, the statically compiled ipw2100 driver attempts to load the firmware
before the root filesystem is mounted.

[Comment 10 Henrik Brix Andersen 2005-10-31 09:27:05 UTC]

Upstream reports that this is a well known yet still unaddressed problem :(

[Comment 11 Daniel Drake (RETIRED) 2005-11-01 07:02:50 UTC]

Closing as upstream bug. If anyone would like to help us track this, please
report this bug to http://bugzilla.kernel.org and post the new URL here. Thanks.