On 11/05/2025 at 04:18, Felix Crux wrote:
I have attached the syslog from that latest installation attempt.
The log confirms that the issue is caused by check-missing-firmware when unloading and reloading the xhci-pci-renesas module.
I was able to reproduce it on my laptop by unloading and reloading ehci-pci. I naively assumed that a mounted partition on the USB drive would mark all drivers in the path as used and prohibit unloading them, but it seems I was wrong.
On Sat, May 10 02:09, Cyril Brulebois wrote:Unfortunately (to the best of my knowledge at the time, and I didn't check if that changed recently) the firmware file is not distributable and cannot be shipped in any packages. We could and probably should filter out this specific filename in d-i, like iwl-debug-yoyo.bin (that'd be in hw-detect's check-missing-firmware.sh).
The Renesas USB controller seems to work fine without it, and according to the kernel log, a default firmware is loaded from non-volatile memory:
xhci-pci-renesas 0000:a3:00.0: failed to load firmware renesas_usb_fw.mem, *fallback to ROM*
So I think this is the way to go. The fix is trivial, do you wish to take care of it or shall I prepare a MR ?
Incidentally -- and I apologize for bundling yet another unrelated issue into this; I can file a separate bug if that's better -- I wasn't able to get the installer to automatically load the firmware from removable media the way it suggests in the error message. I tried putting the file on the root of a FAT32-formatted drive, and also in a directory named "firmware", but in both cases the installer couldn't find it and load it. I had to mount the drive and copy it myself from /mnt to /lib/firmware, at which time the installer did recognize that it was present and the error cleared.
You could also just mount the partition containing the firmware file to /media and re-run the firmware detection.
This is a known issue, the loose firmware file search is unreliable. Firmware package search is much better. See #740503 and #1029962. I proposed a fix but the required change was rather invasive and the time was not ideal (before bookworm release), then it kind of stalled...