[arch-dev-public] linux-firmware package, some thoughts

[Jelle van der Waa]

On 27/09/2021 21:13, Jan Alexander Steffens (heftig) via arch-dev-public 
wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 27, 2021 at 8:30 PM Tobias Powalowski via arch-dev-public <
> arch-dev-public at lists.archlinux.org> wrote:
> 
>> Hi guys,
>> lately did a lot of archboot hacking and stumbled over our firmware
>> package.
>> It needs installed 750 MB, download size is 130 MB.
>> I tried to get it smaller and uploaded the archboot-linux-firmware package
>> for my purposes.
>> Our linux kernel needs only 180 MB installed size, download size is about
>> 37 MB.
>> Wouldn't it make sense to provide for each kernel we ship, a separate
>> firmware package?
>> Just my 2 cwnts,
>> greetings
>> tpowa
>>
> 
> The method used there wouldn't produce a usable firmware package for me.
> For example, `modinfo -F firmware iwlwifi` lists
> `iwlwifi-Qu-c0-hr-b0-64.ucode` but linux-firmware does not contain that
> file. The driver will fall back to the next lower version,
> `iwlwifi-Qu-c0-hr-b0-63.ucode`, which is in linux-firmware but not in the
> modinfo output.
> 
> I think the best we can do is split some of the more obscure vendors that
> have large firmware sets, like Netronome, Qualcomm, Mellanox, Marvell,
> Cavium, QLogic and NXP.


I second this, the biggest firmware sizes are from these fancynetwork 
equipemnt folks such as netronome. An alternative is enabling xz 
compression for the firmware itself this should save space as well, but 
it depends on support in the LTS kernel.

Greetings,

Jelle van der Waa
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