Firmware to support LTS kernels

[Tim Gardner]

With the advent of LTS kernels, maintenance of the linux-firmware
package in Precise is becoming a bit of a problem. Due to SRU policy,
updates to firmware files has been difficult. It has recently become a
bit easier to _add_ new firmware files, but suffice it to say, Precise
linux-firmware has diverged significantly from upstream.

My original plan had been to carry any new or updated firmware files
required by a particular LTS kernel in the kernel package itself. That
has the advantage of being independent of the Precise linux-firmware
package. However, there are 2 disadvantages to that scheme:

1) If you have multiple LTS kernels installed, then you'll have multiple
copies of the updated firmware also installed. Given the size of the
kernel itself, the relatively small firmware files might not have much
of an impact.

2) Each subsequent LTS kernel package has to carry the cumulative
firmware updates from the previous LTS kernels, e.g., the Saucy LTS
kernel must carry all additions from Quantal and Raring.

I received some objections to this approach wherein it was suggested
that I just add new files to Precise linux-firmware to support LTS
kernels. The issues I have with that are:

1) Users that never install an LTS kernel continue to accrue new (and
useless to them) firmware files.
2) Updates to existing files are sometimes difficult to verify.
3) Catching up to upstream is gonna require a massive SRU effort.

If we're gonna continue to update Precise linux-firmware to support LTS
kernels, then I guess I'd like to reset the content of the Precise
package to be that of Saucy (which is current with upstream). Saucy is
mostly a superset of Precise, but there _have_ been a few modifications
to existing firmware files.

Thoughts ? Things are only going to get worse with the 14.04 kernel in
Precise.

rtg
-- 
Tim Gardner tim.gardner at canonical.com