Re: Bug#239952: kernel-source-2.6.4: qla2xxx contains non-free firmware
Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 26, 2004 at 02:50:15PM -0500, Nathanael Nerode wrote:
>> > And more and more users will just ignore the official kernel package,
>> > because it will not support modern hardware.
>> Noooo... all the brand-new hardware on my newest machine is supported
>> without firmware updates.
>
> Really? You'd be surprised how much hardware requires firmware updates
> to work. What hardware do you have in that box?
... and just to follow up ;-), I got an Adaptec AIC7xxx SCSI card for that
machine. And that changed things -- the AIC7xxx *does* have firmware
updates -- *free* firmware updates with source code *and* even source code
for the assembler. So it would stay in "main"!
I also forgot the sound card, a cs46xx (also appears to have no non-free
firmware updates). And the Intel hardware random number generator
(likewise). And the PS/2 keyboard and mouse.
Other systems in the house have 3c590 ethernet cards (again, no non-free
firmware update I can find), emu10k1 sound cards (this has some binary
blobs, but they appear to be basically legitimate mapping tables), AHA1740
and Advansys SCSI cards (again, no non-free firmware updates).
So I can honestly say that if all the binary-only firmware was removed from
the official kernel package, I wouldn't lose support for a single piece of
hardware.
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