Using b43-fwcutter on Windows drivers

[João Paulo Rechi Vita]

On Thu, Jun 8, 2017 at 12:48 AM, Larry Finger <Larry.Finger at lwfinger.net> wrote:
> On 06/07/2017 07:08 PM, João Paulo Rechi Vita
> A potential solution to your problem might be to use The method employed in
> http://www.lwfinger.com/b43-firmware/no_net_install_bcm43xx_firmware.tar.bz2.
> That tar file contains Broadcom object files with firmware for b43 and
> b43legacy with a script that extracts the firmware files. It meets Broadcom
> restrictions in that it only redistributes drivers, not firmware files. That
> particular tar file contains 5.100.138 b43 firmware; however, it would be
> easy to package a different driver, and adjust the extraction script
> accordingly. If it is not possible to package the tar file as part of your
> Windows installation, at least you could have your users download that file
> from a Windows boot, and then run the firmware extraction from a Linux boot.
>
> The only thing I ask is that you host the download on your server. I do not
> promise to host those files in perpetuity. I wrote part of the script file,
> and you have my permission to use it as you please as long as you preserve
> my copyright. The rest of the script is part of the openSUSE package.
>

We already ship a similar script based on the debian package for
b43-fwcutter (with some adaptations for our rootfs layout), that would
download the drivers, extract and install firmware for the user, so we
could just ship the files as well. What I was trying to avoid is
shipping those files, and that's where extracting from the Windows
drivers would come in handy.

Thanks,

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João Paulo Rechi Vita  |  +1.415.851.5778  |  Endless