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Re: Bug#1034551: kmod: Include iwlwifi.conf from Ubuntu



On Apr 18, Jamie Bainbridge <jamie.bainbridge@gmail.com> wrote:

I would like to have feedback from the kernel team about this proposed 
change.

> I have a laptop with iwlwifi wireless card:
> 
>  $ sudo lspci -nn | grep Net
>  Network controller [0280]: Intel Corporation Wireless 7265 [8086:095a] (rev 59)
> 
> This hardware requires the firmware-iwlwifi package, and the firmware
> works fine. However, on nonfree install or nonfree Live, the wireless
> interface repeatedly dies as soon as it's used with "Microcode SW error
> detected. Restarting" in dmesg and long firmware dump from the driver.
> it's not possible to even "apt update" because the interface dies.
So does the firmware work or not?

> Ubuntu ships a file in its kmod package with the following contents:
> 
>  # /etc/modprobe.d/iwlwifi.conf
>  # iwlwifi will dyamically load either iwldvm or iwlmvm depending on the
>  # microcode file installed on the system.  When removing iwlwifi, first
>  # remove the iwl?vm module and then iwlwifi.
>  remove iwlwifi \
>  (/sbin/lsmod | grep -o -e ^iwlmvm -e ^iwldvm -e ^iwlwifi | xargs
>  /sbin/rmmod) \
>  && /sbin/modprobe -r mac80211
But why then also unload mac80211?

> Adding this file to Debian resolves the problem.
But why? At no point you described something or somebody requesting that
iwlwifi is unloaded.

> This is a request to include the above iwlwifi.conf file in Debian's
> kmod package too.
> 
> I can only assume from the massive Ubuntu install base that this file
> doesn't cause any problems for devices which don't need the modules
> loaded in this order, while also resolving whatever problem requires
> that modules are loaded in the order which the above file forces.
> 
> I could not find any previous bug with this request. I also couldn't
> find Ubuntu's history of this package to find why it was included there
> in the first place. It's been there for a very long time, at least since
> kmod 9 from over 10 years ago.
So I am not very comfortable with adding code whose purpose and origin 
is unclear.

> Given that Ubuntu has shipped this file for so long, the risk of any
> regression in Debian seems extremely low.
Given also that Debian never shipped this, I would like to better 
understand why we should do it now.

-- 
ciao,
Marco

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