On Sat, Jan 14, 2012 at 06:51:05PM +0100, Ingo Schwarze wrote: > Hi Dave, > > Dave Anderson wrote on Sat, Jan 14, 2012 at 12:14:57PM -0500: > > > and then ran 'pkg_add -ui' it was unable to update those files: > > "Couldn't find updates for uvideo-firmware-1.2p0, iwn-firmware-5.6p0". > > The firmwares live in a different package repository, > that's why pkg_add(1) doesn't find them by default. > > If you do want to check for new firmwares, take the above > message as a reminder to run > > $ sudo fw_update > > manually. But note that's not necessarily related to doing an > operating system upgrade. > > > I'd expect that making 'pkg_add -u' able to find these files would be > > fairly simple (either by giving it access to the same data used by the > > installer or by recording where it was found with any package added from > > a source not in PKG_PATH), > > I'm not sure i would want pkg_add(1) to look outside the PKG_PATH. > > > and it would certainly make life a bit more convenient when upgrading. > > Am I missing something important, is this on someone's TODO list, > > The only (potential, minor) problem i see is that people might run > pkg_add(1), see the "couldn't find", and not know about fw_update(1). > That's probably what happened to you. > > I'm not sure how to improve that. Messages printed by programs > should be terse, so i don't think pkg_add(1) should print a > suggestion to run fw_update(1) when it sees *-firmware-* packages > it can't update. Most people will know that anyway, and there is > no strong reason to check for firmware updates at that particular > time. > > Maybe it could be mentioned in the pkg_add(1) manual. > Then again, that manual doesn't document the "Couldn't find updates" > diagnostic at all, so far. > > > do the installer and pkg_add developers not talk to each other, > > Actually, i have met all of krw@, halex@ and espie@ at least twice > during hackathons, but never together; so you may have a point... :-D > > </irony> > But no, that's not the root cause of the issue. > > Yours, > Ingo >
i guess we haven;t done a great job of advertising fw_update. for example, no other man page references the tool. it certainly isn;t helpful that pkg_add informs you that it hasn;t been able to find updates. i'm not sure how easy it would be to fix, but it might be better if it said nothing at all (though then you would probably forget they were installed at all). i think at a minimum pkg_add probably should document that fw_update handles non-free firmware, and we should probably update the packages section of afterboot(8) too. however i'm not sure when the author intended fw_update to be used. i.e. in the course of upgrading or whenever you please. jmc
