[needs-packaging] why was crystalhd-dkms package removed?
Affects | Status | Importance | Assigned to | Milestone | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
crystalhd (Ubuntu) |
Confirmed
|
Wishlist
|
Unassigned |
Bug Description
The crystalhd-dkms package was removed from the source package back in http://
> * Remove dkms package which contained buggy driver.
> Driver already existed in mainline kernel. Any issues with the driver
> should be directed to the kernel package.
> (Closes: #682252)
> (Closes: #699470)
The crystalhd module has *not* been included in the mainline kernel for about 2 years, since it was removed from staging in v3.17 (http://
In fact, it appears that the version that used to exist in the mainline kernel was much older and basically abandoned. It only supported the BCM70012 chip, not the more featureful and useful BCM70015: https:/
The CrystalHD hardware is still useful and functional with recent kernels. I have an old Atom-based mini-PC which still plays HD video nicely thanks to the BCM crystalhd decoder card.
Over at Github, we've updated the driver source to build correctly under more recent kernels. https:/
I'm currently using https:/
--
It would be great to release updated crystalhd-dkms packages to make this still-useful hardware more accessible to other Ubuntu users. I am not very clear on the packaging conventions that I would need to follow in order to update the current package.
I attempted to catalog the large number of variants of this driver floating around the web: /github. com/dbason/ crystalhd/ blob/master/ HISTORY. md
https:/
Here are the ones I've found, roughly in order of most obsolete/broken to newest:
1. Staging driver from Linux kernel v3.16 version (https:/ /git.kernel. org/cgit/ linux/kernel/ git/gregkh/ staging. git/tree/ drivers/ staging/ crystalhd? h=v3.16) — this version was removed in 2014 from v3.1 (http:// lkml.iu. edu/hypermail/ linux/kernel/ 1408.0/ 01475.html) due to the fact that it was unmaintained and obsolete; it only supported the BCM70012 chip, for example.
* See this LKML kernel thread from 2013 where Steven Newbury and Greg K-H discuss this code: https:/ /lkml.org/ lkml/2013/ 10/27/103
2. The Debian version,
which appears to be based on a ~2010 version of the code from the
mainline kernel, and like it only supports the BCM70012 chip.
3. Jarod Wilson's tree, last updated in 2012: http:// git.linuxtv. org/cgit. cgi/jarod/ crystalhd. git/
4. Yeradis's tree, forked from Jarod's tree, and last updated in 2013: https:/ /github. com/yeradis/ crystalhd
5. Dbason's tree, forked from Yeradis's tree, and last updated in 2016: https:/ /github. com/dbason/ crystalhd
Only the last version can be built and used without error on a modern kernel.