On Mon, 2013-05-06 at 21:51 -0400, Christopher Waid wrote: > OK, > > I did some investigating and found that the carl9170 is included in the > main repository in the firmware-linux-free package. That's great news. I > tested it with a few different USB adapters and things work once > installed. > > However I investigated the ath9k_firmware for AR9271 and AR7010 USB N wifi > chipsets and found that its included in firmware-atheros package. It is > not in main because it is not free. However ath9k_htc_open firmware is now > available and is free. I would imagine it should thus be moved to the > firmware-linux-free package.
The main upstream source for both firmware-linux-free and firmware-linux-nonfree is the linux-firmware git repository (which I also co-maintain) at kernel.org. Wherever possible, firmware should be added there first. > What I'm curious about is why the firmware-linux-free package which is in > main is not included on installation media or at least as part of the > desktop meta package during installation. I'd consider it a critical > component for desktops/servers and no different than including the kernel > itself. That's a very good point. Until recently, I don't think there was anything in firmware-linux-free that would be useful at installation time. But the carl9170 firmware and any other free firmware for network controllers is obviously worth including. > Unlike non-free firmware there are no licensing or guideline > issues that I'm aware of. > > Who is packaging the ar9271 / ath9k_htc firmware currently? You? :-) Can you talk to the upstream developers about getting this into linux-firmware.git? Please cc me and David Woodhouse <dw...@infradead.org>. Ben. -- Ben Hutchings For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism. - Harrison
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