Re: e100: eth1: e100_request_firmware: Failed to load firmware "e100/d101m_ucode.bin": -2

I demand that Ant may or may not have written...

> Ever since I upgraded my Debian workstation's Kernel to v2.6.26 to
> v2.6.30 and rebooting after almost 159 days of uptime, I noticed this in
> my Debian's boot up and dmesg:
>
> [ 40.438588] e100 0000:01:09.0: firmware: requesting e100/d101m_ucode.bin
> [ 40.555920] e100: eth1: e100_request_firmware: Failed to load
> firmware "e100/d101m_ucode.bin": -2

That's -ENOENT; the userspace helper didn't find the requested file.

[snip]
> Do I need to be concerened about this error? Thank you in advance.

If it's working (presumably, it is), then all is well. Otherwise, you need to
install firmware-linux.

--
| Darren Salt | linux at youmustbejoking | nr. Ashington, | Doon
| using Debian GNU/Linux | or ds ,demon,co,uk | Northumberland | Army
| + Burn less waste. Use less packaging. Waste less. USE FEWER RESOURCES.

I'm an absolute, off-the-wall fanatical moderate.

Hello,

Ant a écrit :
>
> Thanks. firmware-linux package was it. I guess that network card was too
> old to be included?

No, it is because of the Debian policy : non-free blobs and firmwares
included in the mainline kernel sources are moved away from the Debian
kernel into separate non-free packages.

On Monday 28 September 2009 03:08 in comp.os.linux.hardware, somebody
identifying as Pascal Hambourg wrote...

> Hello,
>
> Ant a écrit :
>>
>> Thanks. firmware-linux package was it. I guess that network card was
>> too old to be included?
>
> No, it is because of the Debian policy : non-free blobs and firmwares
> included in the mainline kernel sources are moved away from the Debian
> kernel into separate non-free packages.

I'm afraid that statement is built upon a contradiction in terms. There
is no such thing as "non-free blobs and firmwares included in the
mainline kernel". The mainline kernel - i.e. the vanilla kernel as
supplied by Linus Torvalds & friends - is completely GPL'ed and
contains no binaries or firmware whatsoever, *because* it's GPL'ed.

Such binary blobs and firmware are added only at the distribution level,
and considering that Debian trie to be as politically correct as
possible - since those binaries would automatically "taint" the kernel
according to the GPL and would introduce non-backtraceable and non
fixable bugs - Debian will probably package those separately
as "non-free packages", that much is true. Yet the fact that they
exist in Debian is the responsibility of the Debian kernel maintainers
and has nothing to do with Linus & friends. ;-)

--
*Aragorn*
(registered GNU/Linux user #223157)