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Bug#950578: linux-image-4.19.67-2-arm64: Add ACPI network interface support for RPi4

Cross-posted to 2 groups.

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I would really like to get an update on this, because I really can't 
understand what the holdup is, or why non related issues seem to be be 
shoved into this bug, with the apparent end result of completely 
distracting from the matter at hand.

This bug is about one thing and one thing only: Enabling Raspberry Pi 4 
users to perform a netinstall using the next official aarch64 ISO of 
Debian 10.x. Therefore it is only about backporting the Genet ACPI 
driver into the 4.19 kernel, for which an effective backport patch was 
actually submitted.

It is *NOT* about tracking whether the 5.x kernel packages have Genet 
support. And it is *NOT* about troubleshooting network issues with the 
5.x kernel.

The sole focus for the bug, as it was opened by the submitter (myself) 
is to add Genet support to the kernel that is used by the Debian ISO 
installer, and, seeing that no progress appears to have been made on 
that front, despite the fact that a patch to *SOLVE* the reported issue 
has been submitted along with the bug report, I would greatly appreciate 
if we could reframe the problem and drop all references to 5.x genet 
support as being linked to this bug, as it looks to me like this is 
hindering the resolution of the one and only issue that prompted the 
creation of this bug.

I would also greatly appreciate if this could actually be treated with 
the level of urgency it requires on account of the following.

- As of March 2020, the Raspberry Pi Foundation announced that it had 
sold 640 000 Raspberry Pi 4 units, and one can reasonably expect that 1 
million units will have been sold by year's end, which clearly makes the 
platform one of the most popular ARM64 targets, if not the most popular, 
and therefore, one can reasonably expect many of its users to want to 
install Debian 10.x on it. By not applying the proposed patch and 
enabling netinst from official Debian 10.x ISOs as a matter of urgency, 
Debian maintainers will be doing a major disservice to their users.

- The required patch to *SOLVE* the issue has been provided, so it's not 
like Debian maintainers have to invest time to create the backport 
themselves. And for the record, I did work with Jeremy Linton, the 
person who upstreamed the main patch for 5.x kernels, and used the code 
that he was in the process of submitting at that time to create the 
backport (which is actually tailored for easy review by Debian 
maintainers), so the attached patch was not produced in isolation.

- Though it may look that way at first glance, this patch is not being 
requested because we are using a custom/toy bootloader. On the contrary, 
the very reason why we can use the official aarch64 ISO is because we 
are following industry standards pretty much to the letter. We are using 
both ACPI and UEFI in a very official manner, and as a matter of fact, 
the UEFI firmware that is meant to be used with the official ISOs is 
fully integrated with the EDK2 [1]. So this is not a "it would be nice 
if Debian could do this so that it would work with our custom 
bootloader" but really a "If Debian is to follow industry standards for 
the Raspberry Pi 4 and other UEFI platforms that use a Broadcom Genet 
NIC, then it should provide the functionality requested above, for which 
we have conveniently provided a patch".

So, if the integration of the proposed patch into the kernel used by the 
next Debian ISO release is going to be delayed further, I would really 
like the Debian maintainers to explain why that is the case.

We have been *EXCEEDINGLY* patient about this and waited in the hope 
that Debian maintainers would understand the urgency, but, seeing that 
Debian 10.4, which is planned to be released in 2 days, does not appear 
to integrate the patch we proposed (either that or this bug tracker was 
not updated as it should), I feel that we might as well tell the 
thousands of Raspberry Pi 4 users who we are seeing downloading the UEFI 
firmware in the hope of using it to install GNU/Linux, that they should 
just forget about Debian, because it seems Debian maintainers have 
either very little interest in ensuring that their OS can be installed 
on what is, by far, be the most popular ARM64 platforms out there, or 
have failed to grasp the implications of not applying the patch that can 
solve this very important issue and which was proposed *MONTHS* ago...

Regards,

/Pete

[1] 
https://github.com/tianocore/edk2-platforms/tree/master/Platform/RaspberryPi/RPi4

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Bug#950578: linux-image-4.19.67-2-arm64: Add ACPI network interface support for RPi4 (patch attached) Pete Batard <pete@akeo.ie> - 2020-02-03 20:10 +0100
  Bug#950578: (no subject) Pete Batard <pete@akeo.ie> - 2020-02-14 17:40 +0100
    Bug#950578: Updated patch Pete Batard <pete@akeo.ie> - 2020-02-25 12:40 +0100
      Bug#950578: (no subject) Pete Batard <pete@akeo.ie> - 2020-03-03 18:40 +0100
  Bug#950578: marked as done (linux-image-4.19.67-2-arm64: Add ACPI  network interface support for RPi4 (patch attached)) "Debian Bug Tracking System" <owner@bugs.debian.org> - 2020-03-30 10:20 +0200
  Bug#950578: fixed in linux 5.5.13-1 Pete Batard <pete@akeo.ie> - 2020-03-30 10:50 +0200
    Bug#950578: fixed in linux 5.5.13-1 Ben Hutchings <benh@debian.org> - 2020-03-30 15:40 +0200
  Bug#950578: linux-image-5.5.0-1-armmp: enable Raspberry Pi 4 NIC module "bcmgenet" Steven Shiau <steven@nchc.org.tw> - 2020-04-06 10:30 +0200
  Bug#950578: Linux 5.5.0-1-arm64: kernel panic after module bcmgenet was loaded Steven Shiau <steven@nchc.org.tw> - 2020-04-09 05:50 +0200
    Bug#950578: Linux 5.5.0-1-arm64: kernel panic after module bcmgenet was loaded Ben Hutchings <ben@decadent.org.uk> - 2020-04-13 16:40 +0200
  Bug#950578: linux-image-4.19.67-2-arm64: Add ACPI network interface support for RPi4 Pete Batard <pete@akeo.ie> - 2020-05-07 12:20 +0200
    Bug#950578: linux-image-4.19.67-2-arm64: Add ACPI network interface support for RPi4 Ben Hutchings <benh@debian.org> - 2020-05-07 14:50 +0200
      Bug#950578: linux-image-4.19.67-2-arm64: Add ACPI network interface support for RPi4 Pete Batard <pete@akeo.ie> - 2020-05-07 15:30 +0200
        Bug#950578: linux-image-4.19.67-2-arm64: Add ACPI network interface support for RPi4 Ben Hutchings <benh@debian.org> - 2020-05-09 23:30 +0200
          Bug#950578: linux-image-4.19.67-2-arm64: Add ACPI network interface support for RPi4 Pete Batard <pete@akeo.ie> - 2020-05-10 00:40 +0200
          Difficulties with kernel package contributions Ben Hutchings <ben@decadent.org.uk> - 2020-05-17 18:00 +0200

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