Re: kernel 2.6.11 and tg3 broadcom
On Tue, Apr 05, 2005 at 04:45:30PM +0200, Marco Calviani wrote:
> Hi,
> i've read here http://lists.debian.org/debian-kern...3/msg00412.html
> <http://lists.debian.org/debian-kernel/2005/03/msg00412.html> that the
> Debian team has decided to wipe out the Broadcom tg3 module from the
> 2.6.11 and following releases. I've a laptop which uses this card to
> connect to a LAN. Since i must work in a LAN the problem arises.
>
> Is there any possibility to add the modules in a separate way inside the
> kernel?
The problem is that the tg3 driver in question is not actually distributable,
since it claims the firmware blob is GPLed, but fails to provide the source
code of it. This is under discussion in :
http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/04/msg00047.html
(also on debian-legal and LKML), and i just contacted the broadcom driver
support folk to get a clarification of this. Notice that this same problem is
present in the drivers broadcom distribute on their web site.
Once this problem is solved, the removed modules (tg3 and some others), will
be uploaded to non-free, including as .udeb form, and you will just need to
install them from there, and be happy, or decide you don't like non-free
drivers and not buy broadcom chipsets in the future.
Notice that this is an improvement over the pre-2.6.11 solution, where the
driver was present, but stripped of the problematic firmware, and thus didn't
work as expected.
Don't worry, we are solving this, and everything should work out for the best,
hopefully in a rather short term.
Friendly,
Sven Luther
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