Bug 185661

Summary:	brcmfmac4356-pcie.txt is missing from linux-firmware, but is required for BCM4356 to function
Product:	Drivers	Reporter:	Alfie "Azelphur" Day (kernel)
Component:	network-wireless	Assignee:	drivers_network-wireless (drivers_network-wireless)
Status:	NEW ---
Severity:	normal	CC:	cemunleashed, geonicz, kuro, limero1337, mail, of82ecuq, szg00000
Priority:	P1
Hardware:	All
OS:	Linux
Kernel Version:	4.8.4-1-ARCH	Subsystem:
Regression:	No	Bisected commit-id:

Description Alfie "Azelphur" Day 2016-10-30 19:33:46 UTC

I have a small handheld (GPD Win) which contains a BCM4356 WiFi device.

Scanning for networks works, but actually connecting doesn't. Looking at dmesg I spotted

[ 1559.185320] brcmfmac 0000:01:00.0: Direct firmware load for brcm/brcmfmac4356-pcie.txt failed with error -2

After dropping brcmfmac4356-pcie.txt from https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/third_party/linux-firmware/+/f151f016b4fe656399f199e28cabf8d658bcb52b/brcm/brcmfmac4356-pcie.txt into /lib/firmware/brcm, everything works as expected.

Comment 1 of82ecuq 2018-04-28 14:35:10 UTC

*gentle nudge*

is there anything i can do to help fix this? would it be considered a valid fix to just copy the chromeOS file over? after all, it contains a mac address, which probably shouldn't be used for all users of that hardware out there (and i'm not sure what other hardware specifics). is there a better way? should the driver attempt to copy the file from EFIvarfs itself?

Comment 2 cemunleashed 2019-03-12 16:46:26 UTC

Is it functional with kernel >=4.19? BCM4356 doesn't work with recent kernels for me. Works with 4.19 and older.

Comment 3 David Pedersen 2020-05-03 23:23:10 UTC

I just did a fresh Arch Linux install on my GPD Win and I didn't have to do anything special to get wifi working. I don't know what fixed it, but I think we can close this bug now.

Kernel 5.6.8