zd1201 wireless card firmware should be included / installed by default

[Patrick Wijnings]

When plugging in a zd1201 wireless stick in dapper / edgy dmesg gives the following output:
[17180378.728000] usb 1-9: Failed to load zd1201.fw firmware file!
[17180378.728000] usb 1-9: Make sure the hotplug firmware loader is installed.
[17180378.728000] usb 1-9: Goto http://linux-lc100020.sourceforge.net for more info
[17180378.728000] usb 1-9: zd1201 firmware upload failed: -2
[17180378.728000] zd1201: probe of 1-9:1.0 failed with error -2
[17180378.728000] usbcore: registered new driver zd1201

It seems the firmware file is missing, so all zd1201 sticks are, altough the driver was included in the kernel almost a year ago, still unsupported. Since a lot of usb wireless cards are zd1201-based (see http://linux-lc100020.sourceforge.net), the firmware should be at least packaged in universe (multiverse?) or, if possible, included and installed by default in main (restricted?).

The client-mode firmware file is only 69 kiB big, so it would easily fit on the install cd.
The accesspoint-mode firmware file (61 kiB) doesn't really need to be included by default, because most users won't need it, and the users who do need it will be experienced enough to apt-get it.

[towsonu2003 (towsonu2003)]

thanks for your bug report. I believe they cannot distribute firmware files (copyright issues). I'm not sure though.

[Patrick Wijnings (dutchr-pw)]

As far as I know the ipw3945 wireless drivers use a binary daemon, which is included by default, and a lot of proprietary/copyright stuff (mp3 support, flash player, ...) is also installable from multiverse. I'm not sure either however.

[Richard Hughes (richard-hughes)]

This surely falls into the same licence as atmel-firmare, which I also needed to get my girlfriends laptop surfing. The firmware is not kernel specific, so perhaps this bug is better targetted at atmel-firmware.

[Djainette (djainette)]

The most annoying thing is we have copy the firmware in /lib/firmware each time there's a new kernel. It's not much, but it doesn't help when people argue that linux can't manage plug and play hardware...

[Marcus Granado (mrc-gran)]

just for record, you can download the firmware from sourceforge, together with some documentation of compatible hardware:

http://linux-lc100020.sourceforge.net/

Note as well that I noticed some instabilities in zd1201 driver/ap-firmware with Gutsy Tribe 3 (Feisty was ok) that need to be checked out (bug #130998)

[Patrick Wijnings (dutchr-pw)]

Still not fixed in gutsy; also affects linux-source-2.6.22.

[Leann Ogasawara (leannogasawara)]

I'm retargeting this bug towards the upcoming Hardy kernel and have tagged this as "hardy-kernel-candidate". However, against the linux-source-2.6.17 and linux-source-2.6.22 package this is being marked as "Won't Fix" as it does not meet the criteria for a stable release update. To learn more about the stable release update process please refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/StableReleaseUpdates . Thanks!

[Leann Ogasawara (leannogasawara)]

Hardy Heron Alpha2 was recently released. It contains an updated version of the kernel. You can download and try the new Hardy Heron Alpha2 release from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/hardy/alpha-2/ . You should be able to then test the new kernel via the LiveCD. If you can, please verify if this bug still exists or not and report back your results. General information regarding the release can also be found here: http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/hardy/alpha2 . Thanks!

[Patrick Wijnings (dutchr-pw)]

I have tested with Hardy Alpha 3, and the firmware isn't included yet. The error message from dmesg is still the same.

[Patrick Wijnings (dutchr-pw)]

The firmware isn't included in hardy alpha 3 yet, so the bug still exists.

[Patrick Wijnings (dutchr-pw)]

I have tested under hardy alpha 5, and the firmware is still missing.

I have also tried to find under what license the firmware is released. The driver is licensed under the MPL / GPL, but the source for the firmware seems to be missing. The driver was originally written by Sweex, so that's probably where the firmware comes from. This would mean the firmware can be distributed "as-is" (http://gentoo-wiki.com/As-is).

Distributions that already include the firmware, are:
 - Gentoo (http://www.gentooportage.info/portage/net-wireless/zd1201-firmware.html) (eBuild - "as-is")
 - Mandriva (ftp://bo.mirror.garr.it/pub/mirrors/Mandrake/official/current/SRPMS/non-free/release/) (RPM - "as-is")
 - Kanotix (http://kanotix.com/files/debian/pool/non-free/z/zd1201-firmware/) and other Kanotix-based distributions like Parsix and Sidux (deb - MPL/GPL, but in non-free)

The Kanotix package seems to be clean, but I can repackage it if needed.

I'd really like to at least get the package in multiverse for hardy, as that will be the next LTS release.

[Stefan Bader (smb)]

Included firmware with lum.