Bug#541702: linux-image-2.6.30-1-686: Kernel fails to start networking because no e100 firmware
On Sat, 2009-08-15 at 19:21 +0100, Ben Hutchings wrote:
> On Sat, 2009-08-15 at 10:47 -0700, James.Bottomley@HansenPartnership.com
> wrote:
> > Package: linux-image-2.6.30-1-686
> > Version: 2.6.30-5
> > Severity: serious
> > Justification: Policy 2.2.1
>
> That very same section explains why we cannot do what you are
> suggesting!
No, it doesn't ... the decision to put firmware-linux in non-free is
obviously wrong, since the same firmware was shipped as is in main with
2.6.26-2
> > On upgrade from 2.6.30-2-686 networking (on a remote machine) failed to
> > start, meaning that a support ticket had to be opened for KVM access.
>
> I don't recommend running unstable on production machines.
If you bother to read the bug report, you'd see it's actually running
testing.
> > Diagnosis revealed that the e100 driver in 2.6.26-2-686 required no
> > firmware, so the firmware-linux package wasn't installed. Apparently
> > 2.6.30-1-686 was built with external firmware for the e100 so it now
> > depends on the firmware-linux package.
> >
> > This is a serious policy violation because required hardware stops
> > working after the upgrade.
>
> No, most systems do not require the firmware-linux package.
That's not really relevant, is it? linux-image ships with a ton of
drivers most systems don't use as well.
The point is that what was working before the upgrade didn't work after
it.
> > Fix suggested is to make 2.6.30-1-686 depend on linux-firmware so that
> > on upgrade the necessary firmware is present.
>
> I intend to ensure that firmware-linux is mentioned in the release notes
> for squeeze, but it cannot be recommended or made a dependency.
So this amounts to ... assuming the user can find the notice (because
there's a blizzard of notices that go with each upgrade, particularly if
they're going from lenny -> squeeze) you'll tell them that you broke
their system?
The point here is to try and ensure large numbers of systems don't break
before this exits testing for stable.
James
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