I am not aware of a way to build the firmware into the kernel automatically. The firmware is closed-source by its manufacturer, and depending on what mode is required, the firmware that is loaded may change. I will investigate this to see if there is any options, and if so, I'll post again.

adam

When I build linux with loadable module support enabled, the wl1283 firmware blob from the manufacturer is included in the uImage, and loaded properly so the WIFI works. This is the default configuration of the LogicPD Linux BSD.

I should be able to build linux with loadable module support disabled and still have the wl1283 firmware blob from the manufacture included in uImage (Linux loadable modules are (should be) unrelated to firmware blobs). I would like to know what configuration options I need to select in the Linux Kernel Configuration to make this happen.

Thanks, Dave

The issue has to do with how the the firmware is deployed from the kernel. The firmware is considered modules and deployed as part of the make modules_install phase. When you disable the loadable modules, you cannot even call this step manually.

There is a hack/work around that seems to work, but it's not as simple as a few kernel flags.

1. Build the kernel with the loadable modules enabled.
2. Copy rootfs/lib/firmware directory to someplace outside of the rootfs
3. Rebuild the kernel with the loadable modules disabled.
4. Copy the firmware directory from step 2 back to rootfs/lib
5. Rebuild the rootfs image with ./ltib -p kernel -m scdeploy

I tested it with yaffs, but I expect it work with ramdisk as well.

If you try using the scripts in the Linux User guide, expect to see an error
loading wl12xx_sdio
FATAL: Module wl12xx_sdio not found.

It should be OK to ignore this since the driver is already loaded an part of the kernel, so modprobe has no module to load.
After that, you should see the firmware load.

adam

This resolved our issue, thank you very much.

 

Dave