firmware files located in root of repo

firmware files located in root of repo

[clayton]

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Some distributions shipping linux-firmware (e.g. Alpine Linux) split the
linux-firmware project into multiple packages based on subdirectories in the
repo, e.g. /amdgpu might be in a linux-firmware-amdgpu package, to allow for
reducing the rootfs size. Distro images and users can install only the firmware
they need. Ideally, for this use case, all vendor firmware in linux-firmware
would be in subdirectories.

iwlwifi makes this more difficult to support. I called out iwlwifi because 1)
the collective size is large (~175MB, almost 20% of the entire linux-firmware
repo), 2) there are other "free floating" firmware files at the root of the
project but it is by far the worst "offender".

Is there a reason why iwlwifi (and other) firmware is in the root of the repo
and not in some subdirectory ('intel' ?) ? 

-Clayton

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Re: firmware files located in root of repo

[Josh Boyer]

On Tue, Feb 6, 2024 at 7:24 AM <clayton@craftyguy.net> wrote:
>
> Some distributions shipping linux-firmware (e.g. Alpine Linux) split the
> linux-firmware project into multiple packages based on subdirectories in the
> repo, e.g. /amdgpu might be in a linux-firmware-amdgpu package, to allow for
> reducing the rootfs size. Distro images and users can install only the firmware
> they need. Ideally, for this use case, all vendor firmware in linux-firmware
> would be in subdirectories.
>
> iwlwifi makes this more difficult to support. I called out iwlwifi because 1)
> the collective size is large (~175MB, almost 20% of the entire linux-firmware
> repo), 2) there are other "free floating" firmware files at the root of the
> project but it is by far the worst "offender".
>
> Is there a reason why iwlwifi (and other) firmware is in the root of the repo
> and not in some subdirectory ('intel' ?) ?

Historical mostly.  But the kernel needs to look in the correct
location for the firmware before it can move.

josh