Please bump brcm/bcm4330-sdio.bin firmware

Please bump brcm/bcm4330-sdio.bin firmware

[Paul Cercueil]

Hello,

As a week-end project I got the BCM4330 chip to work with the mainline 
Linux kernel on the MIPS CI20 board. One of the problems I was facing 
was the firmware crashing, resulting in timeout errors in the brcmfmac 
driver.

It turns out the bcm4330-sdio.bin firmware that's currently in 
linux-firmware is not the latest one. Running "strings" on the blob 
points out to a version 5.90.125.104 dated 2011-10-25. The firmware 
that originally came on the CI20 is version 5.90.195.26 dated 
2012-05-09, and the version found in Android [1] is 5.90.195.114 dated 
2013-01-23. Only the last two will work on the CI20 board.

My question then, could we bump the firmware available in 
linux-firmware to the latest version? Or is there a valid reason why an 
older firmware is kept in the tree?

Best regards,
-Paul Cercueil

[1] 
https://android.googlesource.com/platform/hardware/broadcom/wlan/+/refs/heads/master/bcmdhd/firmware/bcm4330/fw_bcm4330_bg.bin

Re: Please bump brcm/bcm4330-sdio.bin firmware

[Arend van Spriel]

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On 11/22/2022 12:06 AM, Paul Cercueil wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> As a week-end project I got the BCM4330 chip to work with the mainline 
> Linux kernel on the MIPS CI20 board. One of the problems I was facing 
> was the firmware crashing, resulting in timeout errors in the brcmfmac 
> driver.
> 
> It turns out the bcm4330-sdio.bin firmware that's currently in 
> linux-firmware is not the latest one. Running "strings" on the blob 
> points out to a version 5.90.125.104 dated 2011-10-25. The firmware that 
> originally came on the CI20 is version 5.90.195.26 dated 2012-05-09, and 
> the version found in Android [1] is 5.90.195.114 dated 2013-01-23. Only 
> the last two will work on the CI20 board.
> 
> My question then, could we bump the firmware available in linux-firmware 
> to the latest version? Or is there a valid reason why an older firmware 
> is kept in the tree?

We "Broadcom" could. The linux-firmware repo provides all firmware that 
linux distro can freely redistribute. The license info is listed in the 
README in the repo as are the applicable firmware license documents. So 
releasing the firmware to linux-firmware under the given license can 
only be done by anyone owning it, not by people licensed to use it.

The bcm4330 chip was one of the first chips that brcmfmac supported and 
Broadcom has EOL-ed that chip a long time ago hence no newer firmware 
was considered for release to linux-firmware. In the past we often 
re-released what was available in Android so we probably can do that 
again for this and other chips.

Regards,
Arend

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Re: Please bump brcm/bcm4330-sdio.bin firmware

[Paul Cercueil]

Hi Arend,

Le mar. 22 nov. 2022 à 20:35:41 +0100, Arend van Spriel 
<arend.vanspriel@broadcom.com> a écrit :
> On 11/22/2022 12:06 AM, Paul Cercueil wrote:
>> Hello,
>> 
>> As a week-end project I got the BCM4330 chip to work with the 
>> mainline \x7fLinux kernel on the MIPS CI20 board. One of the problems I 
>> was facing \x7fwas the firmware crashing, resulting in timeout errors 
>> in the brcmfmac \x7fdriver.
>> 
>> It turns out the bcm4330-sdio.bin firmware that's currently in 
>> \x7flinux-firmware is not the latest one. Running "strings" on the blob 
>> \x7fpoints out to a version 5.90.125.104 dated 2011-10-25. The firmware 
>> that \x7foriginally came on the CI20 is version 5.90.195.26 dated 
>> 2012-05-09, and \x7fthe version found in Android [1] is 5.90.195.114 
>> dated 2013-01-23. Only \x7fthe last two will work on the CI20 board.
>> 
>> My question then, could we bump the firmware available in 
>> linux-firmware \x7fto the latest version? Or is there a valid reason 
>> why an older firmware \x7fis kept in the tree?
> 
> We "Broadcom" could. The linux-firmware repo provides all firmware 
> that linux distro can freely redistribute. The license info is listed 
> in the README in the repo as are the applicable firmware license 
> documents. So releasing the firmware to linux-firmware under the 
> given license can only be done by anyone owning it, not by people 
> licensed to use it.

I actually did not know this.

> The bcm4330 chip was one of the first chips that brcmfmac supported 
> and Broadcom has EOL-ed that chip a long time ago hence no newer 
> firmware was considered for release to linux-firmware. In the past we 
> often re-released what was available in Android so we probably can do 
> that again for this and other chips.

This would be great.

Cheers,
-Paul