Arch Linux

xanax

Member

Registered: 2011-06-16

Posts: 6

Custom kernel not recognizing /lib/firmware ?

I recently compiled a custom kernel (2.6.39.2). It's not special really, simply

make localmodconfig

over the stock kernel configuration. My intentions are that I will further finetune this configuration for my PC as soon as I've got it working this far. The problem I'm having right now is that certain firmware (namely brcm wireless) is not loaded properly (or at all?) by the new kernel. No wlan interface is showing up in iwconfig. When I boot my old kernel it works flawlessly however.

Have I missed something? When and where is /lib/firmware acted upon? I couldn't find much by Googling either. Thanks in advance!

lukaszan

Member

Registered: 2011-05-05

Posts: 117

Re: Custom kernel not recognizing /lib/firmware ?

Firmware should be compiled and loaded together with the driver. Are you sure your driver module is compiled and loaded ?

xanax

Member

Registered: 2011-06-16

Posts: 6

Re: Custom kernel not recognizing /lib/firmware ?

Firmware should be compiled and loaded together with the driver. Are you sure your driver module is compiled and loaded ?

Okay then, that clear things up.

And yes, lsmod looks proper. tg3 and broadcom are both loaded.

tomk

Forum Fellow

From: Ireland

Registered: 2004-07-21

Posts: 9,839

Re: Custom kernel not recognizing /lib/firmware ?

I use the the stock linux-firmware package with my custom kernel, and the firmware required by my drivers is loaded correctly.

Post any error messages.

Last edited by tomk (2011-06-27 09:34:01)

lukaszan

Member

Registered: 2011-05-05

Posts: 117

Re: Custom kernel not recognizing /lib/firmware ?

Firmware should be compiled and loaded together with the driver. Are you sure your driver module is compiled and loaded ?

Okay then, that clear things up.

And yes, lsmod looks proper. tg3 and broadcom are both loaded.

A look at kernel.log should give us some clues. Can you post any relevant messages ?