Trouble loading firmware (error -2)

[Chris Bainbridge]

On 2 October 2015 at 18:23, Zlatko Calusic <zcalusic at bitsync.net> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> please help with this issue, the error message is cryptic I don't know what
> error -2 means:
>
> b43 bcma0:1: Direct firmware load for b43/ucode30_mimo.fw failed with error
> -2
> b43 bcma0:1: Direct firmware load for b43/ucode30_mimo.fw failed with error
> -2
> b43 bcma0:1: Direct firmware load for b43-open/ucode30_mimo.fw failed with
> error -2
> b43 bcma0:1: Direct firmware load for b43-open/ucode30_mimo.fw failed with
> error -2
> b43-phy0 ERROR: Firmware file "b43/ucode30_mimo.fw" not found
> b43-phy0 ERROR: Firmware file "b43-open/ucode30_mimo.fw" not found
> b43-phy0 ERROR: You must go to
> http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/b43#devicefirmware and download
> the correct firmware for this driver version. Please carefully read all
> instructions on this website.
>
> Yet, ls -al /lib/firmware/b43/ucode30_mimo.fw:
>
> -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 39632 Apr  6 18:09 /lib/firmware/b43/ucode30_mimo.fw
>
> it's there, as put by b43-fwcutter package (Debian 1:019-2). Though I don't
> have b43-open directory, tried symlinking it, didn't help.
>
> The kernel is virgin 4.2.0 Linus, custom compiled, relevant config entries
> below, am I missing something?
>
> CONFIG_B43=y

Are you using an initrd? The b43 driver tries to load the firmware
when it is initialised. If b43 is builtin (not a module) then the load
will happen at boot time - when the initrd is mounted, but before the
real root - and the firmware won't be found. The solution is to either
copy the firmware to the initrd, or build b43 as a module and make
sure the module isn't on the initrd.

> CONFIG_FIRMWARE_IN_KERNEL=y

Trying to include the firmware blobs in to the kernel binary is
unlikely to work for b43, because b43/main.c only defines 7 firmware
files in MODULE_FIRMWARE(). There are ~117 firmware files in
/lib/firmware/b43 and your wifi card requires some subset of those,
probably not the 7 that are defined.