Missing firmware for the rtl8723ds

[Isaac True]

The rtl8723ds is a chip in the same family as the other Bluetooth adapters supported by this package which requires a different set of firmware binaries.

The firmware binaries are available from the following GitHub repository: https://github.com/armbian/firmware/tree/master/rtl_bt

According to the WHENCE file in the package, the existing firmware files were also sourced from this repository.

[Isaac True (itrue)]

I've created a PPA containing an updated package with the rtl8723ds firmware files obtained from the above repository: https://launchpad.net/~itrue/+archive/ubuntu/rtl8723bt-firmware

I've also attached the .debdiff here.

I've made the following changes:

- Add rtl8723ds firmware files
- Ran update-maintainer
- Renamed generated package from firmware-realtek-rtl8723cs-bt to firmware-realtek-rtl8723-bt to better reflect that the package supports multiple chips in the same family (if this shouldn't be changed, please let me know)

[Loïc Minier (lool)]

I tried to find licensing information in that github repository but couldn't find it - neither for the new files nor for the existing files.

I also try to find the upstream files, and most matched but not all:
2c64e71455c8bb071f1364d80a9eae12 rtl8723bs_config.bin
2c64e71455c8bb071f1364d80a9eae12 ../../firmware/rtl_bt/rtl8723bs_config.bin
2c64e71455c8bb071f1364d80a9eae12 rtl8723bs_config-pine64.bin
2c64e71455c8bb071f1364d80a9eae12 ../../firmware/rtl_bt/rtl8723bs_config-pine64.bin
2344554fed8337eb1d3e7bc10e9b307f rtl8723cs_xx_config-pinebook.bin
md5sum: ../../firmware/rtl_bt/rtl8723cs_xx_config-pinebook.bin: no such file or directory
d51efca9486c57d08a3b5be408e633b9 rtl8723cs_xx_fw.bin
2ea933dbc46d01d523d80b379fc9969b ../../firmware/rtl_bt/rtl8723cs_xx_fw.bin

I couldn't find rtl_bt/rtl8723cs_xx_config-pinebook.bin and rtl_bt/rtl8723cs_xx_fw.bin has different contents in that repo.

So I'm not sure I'm looking at the right branch that this package was created from; especially the licensing part is critical to confirm.

[Isaac True (itrue)]

The license file included seems to be the generic Realtek license from https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware.git/tree/LICENCE.rtlwifi_firmware.txt

There is indeed no evidence that this license actually applies to the files from the Armbian repository.

[Loïc Minier (lool)]

Perhaps it's simpler to check in with the Debian maintainer who created the initial package and copyright file and see if these new files could be added in Debian and then synced into Ubuntu?

[Isaac True (itrue)]

Debian bug filed: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1023410&boring=yes

[Bastian Germann (bastian-germann)]

Have you tried the rtl8723d firmware as suggested in the Debian bug?

[Robie Basak (racb)]

This bug is in the sponsorship queue. However, as above it is blocked on evidence that the binaries proposed to be added are suitably licenced, so this is not in a position to be uploaded to Ubuntu. So I am removing it from the queue for now.

If/when this is resolved, please re-subscribe ~ubuntu-sponsors.

Thanks!