b43 firmware problem solved

I think so anyway. I would like to thank trio for patiently answering a series of questions. I would have loved to have had the actual hardware to test, but I reckon that I have got to a solution.

I will need to study the evolution of the uevent/udev mechanism to fully understand this. I have been relying upon the existence of 'modalias' files in /sys for replaying kernel uevents. In /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit there is code that locates the modalias files, then looks for a 'uevent' file at the same location then sends a "replay" message to it.

The problem is that it doesn't always work. I don't know if the problem is due to an evolution in the mechanism in recent kernels, or not. I'm currently running 2.6.29.6, I would need to check this on older kernels.

For USB interfaces, see this:


That is,the MODALIAS information is to be found in both the 'modalias' file and the 'uevent' file.

The problem arises with some newer interfaces, there is no 'modalias' file, only a 'uevent' file, and the MODALIAS variable is only to be found in the 'uevent' file.

This is the situation that trio has reported:

There is no modalias anywhere. But found two uevent(s)

/sys/bus/ssb/devices/ssb0:1/uevent and /sys/bus/ssb/devices/ssb0:0/uevent

Inside the uevent file:
MODALIAS=ssb:v4243id0812rev0A

I have modified /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit accordingly. It should now successfully replay the uevent for the network hardware that requires the b43 module, and the firmware should get installed.

Tags: woof