Bug#869084: linux-image-4.12.0-trunk-amd64: rtl8723be fails to work with old firmware

[Sven Joachim <svenjoac@gmx.de>]

Control: forwarded -1 https://marc.info/?l=linux-wireless&m=150124050420053&w=2

On 2017-07-20 13:54 +0200, Sven Joachim wrote:

> Package: src:linux
> Version: 4.12.2-1~exp1
> Severity: important
>
> As of commit f70e4df2b384d21e36a7c30a591639592692e0ec, the rtl8723be
> driver uses a new firmware file rtlwifi/rtl8723befw_36.bin which is not
> packaged for Debian yet.  There is fallback code to load the old
> firmware file rtlwifi/rtl8723befw.bin, but does not seem to work, for
> the wifi fails to come up on my laptop. :-(

AFAICS the problem is that request_firmware_nowait() does not wait for
the firmware to show up and returns 0 even if the file is not there, so
the code to load the fallback file will never be reached.

I have reported this upstream now.

Cheers,
       Sven