Bug 39415

Summary:	gentoo-2004.0-x86-20040123 experimental kernel has prism54 but no firmware
Product:	Gentoo Release Media	Reporter:	Matt Taylor <liverbugg>
Component:	Everything	Assignee:	Benjamin Judas (RETIRED) <beejay>
Status:	VERIFIED CANTFIX
Severity:	normal	CC:	latexer
Priority:	High
Version:	unspecified
Hardware:	x86
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Package list:		Runtime testing required:	---

Description Matt Taylor 2004-01-25 22:03:16 UTC

booting the livecd with "experimental dopcmcia" detects and loads prism54 but it can't be used without firmware.  /usr is symlinked to the cdrom so I can't copy the firmware to /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware/.  Booting with the cdcache option doesn't do anything.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1.boot livecd
2.try to ifconfig up wireless interface

Actual Results:  
prism54: request_firmware() failed for 'isl3890'

Expected Results:  
working wireless

Comment 1 Jens Schittenhelm 2004-02-09 01:50:05 UTC

This could be a legal problem. The firmware is not GPL whareas the prism54 is now completely open source and I don't know Intersils position for packaging the firmware along with a distribution. The driver is downloadable at www.prism54.org ( I know another chicken-and-egg situation). I think this should be checked before adding the files to the LiveCD.

Comment 2 Benjamin Judas (RETIRED) gentoo-dev

2004-03-16 22:52:40 UTC

Peter, any comments about this one from your side? Are we supposed to offer that firmware stuff or are there any copyright issues that keep us away from doing that?

Comment 3 Peter Johanson (RETIRED) gentoo-dev

2004-03-17 05:32:14 UTC

we should *NOT* distribute this firmware with the liveCDs yet. the prism54 developers are still in the process of trying to resolve the actual terms under which they can distribute firmware files. They've had an initial contact from Globalspan (the people who bought the guys who originally created the driver/chipset) but have had no official license agreed on, etc. You can see how frustrating this issue is just by looking at the prism54 firmware page here: http://prism54.org/firmware/

As sad as it is, i just don't feel comfortable including this until they've fully resolved that... ):

Comment 4 Benjamin Judas (RETIRED) gentoo-dev

2004-03-17 06:55:06 UTC

closing then

Comment 5 Benjamin Judas (RETIRED) gentoo-dev

2004-03-17 06:55:48 UTC

Closed.