Re: Bug#725714: Partial fix using hw-setup for the missing firmware problem in d-i?

[Petter Reinholdtsen <pere@hungry.com>]

[Joey Hess]
> Looking at dmesg might fail if something is spamming it and the message
> drops out of the ring buffer. Maybe it would be better to look in syslog?

I am aware of it.  I do believe the new method is a huge step forward
and am unsure if it is worth it to use the syslog instead.  If
something is spamming dmesg, the syslog will become very large and the
grep very slow, and that might be a bigger problem than some missed
firmware requests.

> The modinfo check, which has been removed, avoids that problem,
> although it doesn't work for some modules that don't load at all
> when missing firmware. I don't know how many modules have that
> behavior, but if most of them don't, the modinfo check seems worth
> keeping as more robust for the modules it does work for.

My testing on four different laptop types indicated that the modinfo
check never found anything the dmesg check didn't, and most often
missed the interesting wifi card modules.  This was the background for
dropping the modinfo method.

-- 
Happy hacking
Petter Reinholdtsen