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Bug#1118195: firmware-misc-nonfree: no longer actually ships Arm Mali firmware, only link to non-existing file

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  Bug#1118195: firmware-misc-nonfree: no longer actually ships Arm Mali firmware, only link to non-existing file Diederik de Haas <didi.debian@cknow.org> - 2025-10-16 15:30 +0200
    Bug#1118195: firmware-misc-nonfree: no longer actually ships Arm Mali firmware, only link to non-existing file Johannes Schauer Marin Rodrigues <josch@debian.org> - 2025-10-17 23:20 +0200
      Bug#1118195: firmware-misc-nonfree: no longer actually ships Arm Mali firmware, only link to non-existing file "Diederik de Haas" <didi.debian@cknow.org> - 2025-10-18 11:30 +0200
        Bug#1118195: firmware-misc-nonfree: no longer actually ships Arm Mali firmware, only link to non-existing file Johannes Schauer Marin Rodrigues <josch@debian.org> - 2025-10-18 14:10 +0200
    Processed: Re: firmware-misc-nonfree: no longer actually ships  Arm Mali firmware, only link to non-existing file "Debian Bug Tracking System" <owner@bugs.debian.org> - 2025-10-17 23:20 +0200
    Processed: Re: firmware-misc-nonfree: no longer actually ships  Arm Mali firmware, only link to non-existing file "Debian Bug Tracking System" <owner@bugs.debian.org> - 2025-10-18 14:10 +0200
    Bug#1118195: marked as done (firmware-misc-nonfree: no longer  actually ships Arm Mali firmware, only link to non-existing file) "Debian Bug Tracking System" <owner@bugs.debian.org> - 2025-11-02 15:40 +0100

#89649 — Bug#1118195: firmware-misc-nonfree: no longer actually ships Arm Mali firmware, only link to non-existing file

Package: firmware-misc-nonfree
Version: 20250917-1
Severity: important

After the latest update of the firmware-misc-nonfree package, I'm
getting the following warning on my Rock 5B (rk3588):

[    8.764889] panthor fb000000.gpu: Direct firmware load for arm/mali/arch10.8/mali_csffw.bin failed with error -2

Checking for that file reveals it links to a file which does not exist:

```
root@rock5b:~# tree /usr/lib/firmware/arm/
/usr/lib/firmware/arm/
└── mali
    └── arch10.8
        └── mali_csffw.bin -> ../arch10.10/mali_csffw.bin
```

In the upstream repo it's a regular file, but I guess `dedup-firmware.sh`
converts it into a symlink.

I tried if the following patch would fix it:

```
diff --git a/debian/config/misc-nonfree/defines b/debian/config/misc-nonfree/defines
index 71a7ae3..86ca756 100644
--- a/debian/config/misc-nonfree/defines
+++ b/debian/config/misc-nonfree/defines
@@ -32,7 +32,7 @@ files:
  3com/typhoon.bin
  advansys/*
  amphion/vpu/*
- arm/mali/arch10.8/mali_csffw.bin
+ arm/mali/*
  brcm/BCM-0a5c-6410.hcd
  brcm/BCM-0bb4-0306.hcd
  cadence/mhdp8546.bin
diff --git a/debian/copyright b/debian/copyright
index f649657..671975e 100644
--- a/debian/copyright
+++ b/debian/copyright
@@ -279,7 +279,7 @@ Files: ar3k/* ar5523.bin ath3k-1.fw
 Copyright: 2008-2010, Atheros Communications, Inc.
 License: binary-redist-Atheros

-Files: arm/mali/arch10.8/mali_csffw.bin
+Files: arm/mali/*
 Copyright: 2023, Arm Ltd.
 License: binary-redist-Arm-CSF

```

But that resulted in there being no 'arm' directory at all in the
resulting (Salsa CI generated) firmware-misc-nonfree deb file.
No idea what's then needed to get my firmware file back.

(Reported this from one of my amd64 machines, not the arm64 device)

-- System Information:
Debian Release: forky/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'testing'), (101, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 6.16.9+deb14-amd64 (SMP w/16 CPU threads; PREEMPT)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE=en_US:en
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /usr/bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
LSM: AppArmor: enabled

firmware-misc-nonfree depends on no packages.

Versions of packages firmware-misc-nonfree recommends:
pn  firmware-intel-graphics   <none>
pn  firmware-intel-misc       <none>
pn  firmware-mediatek         <none>
pn  firmware-nvidia-graphics  <none>

Versions of packages firmware-misc-nonfree suggests:
ii  initramfs-tools  0.150

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#89666

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Control: tag -1 + patch

Hi,

On Thu, 16 Oct 2025 15:17:57 +0200 Diederik de Haas <didi.debian@cknow.org> wrote:
> I tried if the following patch would fix it:
> 
> ```
> diff --git a/debian/config/misc-nonfree/defines b/debian/config/misc-nonfree/defines
> index 71a7ae3..86ca756 100644
> --- a/debian/config/misc-nonfree/defines
> +++ b/debian/config/misc-nonfree/defines
> @@ -32,7 +32,7 @@ files:
>   3com/typhoon.bin
>   advansys/*
>   amphion/vpu/*
> - arm/mali/arch10.8/mali_csffw.bin
> + arm/mali/*
>   brcm/BCM-0a5c-6410.hcd
>   brcm/BCM-0bb4-0306.hcd
>   cadence/mhdp8546.bin

I tried this patch:

--- a/debian/config/misc-nonfree/defines
+++ b/debian/config/misc-nonfree/defines
@@ -32,7 +32,7 @@ files:
  3com/typhoon.bin
  advansys/*
  amphion/vpu/*
- arm/mali/arch10.8/mali_csffw.bin
+ arm/mali/arch10.*/mali_csffw.bin
  brcm/BCM-0a5c-6410.hcd
  brcm/BCM-0bb4-0306.hcd
  cadence/mhdp8546.bin

And with that, the resulting package (built on salsa) has:

drwxr-xr-x root/root         0 2025-10-15 16:02 ./usr/lib/firmware/arm/
drwxr-xr-x root/root         0 2025-10-15 16:02 ./usr/lib/firmware/arm/mali/
drwxr-xr-x root/root         0 2025-10-15 16:02 ./usr/lib/firmware/arm/mali/arch10.10/
-rw-r--r-- root/root    282624 2025-10-15 16:02 ./usr/lib/firmware/arm/mali/arch10.10/mali_csffw.bin
drwxr-xr-x root/root         0 2025-10-15 16:02 ./usr/lib/firmware/arm/mali/arch10.12/
lrwxrwxrwx root/root         0 2025-10-15 16:02 ./usr/lib/firmware/arm/mali/arch10.12/mali_csffw.bin -> ../arch10.10/mali_csffw.bin
drwxr-xr-x root/root         0 2025-10-15 16:02 ./usr/lib/firmware/arm/mali/arch10.8/
lrwxrwxrwx root/root         0 2025-10-15 16:02 ./usr/lib/firmware/arm/mali/arch10.8/mali_csffw.bin -> ../arch10.10/mali_csffw.bin

I also wonder whether it would make sense to add some mechanism which would
check after dh_builddeb whether the created binary packages contain any
broken symlinks. Does a tool to do such a thing already exist? Lintian does
not warn about this (probably because the link target might come from one of
the Depends) and dh_missing also does not complain that some files do not get
installed.

Any ideas of how to prevent this sort of bug in the long-term?

Thanks!

cheers, josch

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#89669

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Hi,

On Fri Oct 17, 2025 at 11:10 PM CEST, Johannes Schauer Marin Rodrigues wrote:
> On Thu, 16 Oct 2025 15:17:57 +0200 Diederik de Haas <didi.debian@cknow.org> wrote:
>> I tried if the following patch would fix it:
>> 
>> ```
>> diff --git a/debian/config/misc-nonfree/defines b/debian/config/misc-nonfree/defines
>> index 71a7ae3..86ca756 100644
>> --- a/debian/config/misc-nonfree/defines
>> +++ b/debian/config/misc-nonfree/defines
>> @@ -32,7 +32,7 @@ files:
>>   3com/typhoon.bin
>>   advansys/*
>>   amphion/vpu/*
>> - arm/mali/arch10.8/mali_csffw.bin
>> + arm/mali/*
>>   brcm/BCM-0a5c-6410.hcd
>>   brcm/BCM-0bb4-0306.hcd
>>   cadence/mhdp8546.bin
>> ```
>
> I tried this patch:
>
> --- a/debian/config/misc-nonfree/defines
> +++ b/debian/config/misc-nonfree/defines
> @@ -32,7 +32,7 @@ files:
>   3com/typhoon.bin
>   advansys/*
>   amphion/vpu/*
> - arm/mali/arch10.8/mali_csffw.bin
> + arm/mali/arch10.*/mali_csffw.bin
>   brcm/BCM-0a5c-6410.hcd
>   brcm/BCM-0bb4-0306.hcd
>   cadence/mhdp8546.bin
>
> And with that, the resulting package (built on salsa) has:
>
> drwxr-xr-x root/root         0 2025-10-15 16:02 ./usr/lib/firmware/arm/
> drwxr-xr-x root/root         0 2025-10-15 16:02 ./usr/lib/firmware/arm/mali/
> drwxr-xr-x root/root         0 2025-10-15 16:02 ./usr/lib/firmware/arm/mali/arch10.10/
> -rw-r--r-- root/root    282624 2025-10-15 16:02 ./usr/lib/firmware/arm/mali/arch10.10/mali_csffw.bin
> drwxr-xr-x root/root         0 2025-10-15 16:02 ./usr/lib/firmware/arm/mali/arch10.12/
> lrwxrwxrwx root/root         0 2025-10-15 16:02 ./usr/lib/firmware/arm/mali/arch10.12/mali_csffw.bin -> ../arch10.10/mali_csffw.bin
> drwxr-xr-x root/root         0 2025-10-15 16:02 ./usr/lib/firmware/arm/mali/arch10.8/
> lrwxrwxrwx root/root         0 2025-10-15 16:02 ./usr/lib/firmware/arm/mali/arch10.8/mali_csffw.bin -> ../arch10.10/mali_csffw.bin

Thanks for that :-)
Because of that I realized my glob pattern was wrong. So I found which
pattern I should use and with that, all Arm Mali firmware was packaged.

I've attached the patch and submitted it as MR here:
https://salsa.debian.org/kernel-team/firmware-nonfree/-/merge_requests/132

Cheers,
  Diederik

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#89673

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Control: severity -1 serious
Control: forcemerge -1 1118261

Quoting Diederik de Haas (2025-10-18 11:12:05)
> Thanks for that :-)
> Because of that I realized my glob pattern was wrong. So I found which
> pattern I should use and with that, all Arm Mali firmware was packaged.
>
> I've attached the patch and submitted it as MR here:
> https://salsa.debian.org/kernel-team/firmware-nonfree/-/merge_requests/132

Perfect, thank you!

I can now also confirm that the boot failures I reported in #1118261 are due to
the mali firmware which was not getting shipped. I am thus raising the severity
of this bug to RC and merge the other one into this one.

Until this fix gets uploaded we are shipping a hotfix in our own repositories:
https://source.mnt.re/reform/reform-debian-packages/-/commit/                  0947565403d2acd607eade57692bf4916a493c2b

Do you know of a mechanism which would allow to find broken symlinks in the
firmware-nonfree packages automatically in the future and abort the build if
found? Lintian does not show broken symlinks because it cannot know whether the
files maybe come from another package. Should the script generating the install
files gain this feature or maybe a script can be added that is run after
dh_installdeb which analyzes the generated binary packages? This problem was
very frustrating for users on Debian unstable on the affected platforms as
without being able to login, recovery is hard for users who are not very
tech-savvy. And it also took me 3 hours before I found out that it was the
changes firmware-misc-nonfree which resulted in gdm not showing up. I had
suspected some changes in gnome, gtk, gsettings or whatnot but not this
package. :D

Thanks!

cheers, josch

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#89667 — Processed: Re: firmware-misc-nonfree: no longer actually ships Arm Mali firmware, only link to non-existing file

Processing control commands:

> tag -1 + patch
Bug #1118195 [firmware-misc-nonfree] firmware-misc-nonfree: no longer actually ships Arm Mali firmware, only link to non-existing file
Added tag(s) patch.

-- 
1118195: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1118195
Debian Bug Tracking System
Contact owner@bugs.debian.org with problems

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#89672 — Processed: Re: firmware-misc-nonfree: no longer actually ships Arm Mali firmware, only link to non-existing file

Processing control commands:

> severity -1 serious
Bug #1118195 [firmware-misc-nonfree] firmware-misc-nonfree: no longer actually ships Arm Mali firmware, only link to non-existing file
Severity set to 'serious' from 'important'
> forcemerge -1 1118261
Bug #1118195 [firmware-misc-nonfree] firmware-misc-nonfree: no longer actually ships Arm Mali firmware, only link to non-existing file
Bug #1118261 [firmware-misc-nonfree] Upgrading to 20250917-1 makes gdm not appear (only cursor in upper left)
Added tag(s) patch.
Merged 1118195 1118261

-- 
1118195: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1118195
1118261: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1118261
Debian Bug Tracking System
Contact owner@bugs.debian.org with problems

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#89895 — Bug#1118195: marked as done (firmware-misc-nonfree: no longer actually ships Arm Mali firmware, only link to non-existing file)

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Your message dated Sun, 02 Nov 2025 14:36:50 +0000
with message-id <E1vFZCM-004QH8-2W@fasolo.debian.org>
and subject line Bug#1118195: fixed in firmware-nonfree 20251011-1
has caused the Debian Bug report #1118195,
regarding firmware-misc-nonfree: no longer actually ships Arm Mali firmware, only link to non-existing file
to be marked as done.

This means that you claim that the problem has been dealt with.
If this is not the case it is now your responsibility to reopen the
Bug report if necessary, and/or fix the problem forthwith.

(NB: If you are a system administrator and have no idea what this
message is talking about, this may indicate a serious mail system
misconfiguration somewhere. Please contact owner@bugs.debian.org
immediately.)


-- 
1118195: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1118195
Debian Bug Tracking System
Contact owner@bugs.debian.org with problems

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