Bluetooth on the PinePhone using different firmware from linux-firmware

The pine64-pinephone used to use BT firmware (rtl8723cs_xx_fw.bin and rtl8723cs_xx_config.bin) from https://github.com/anarsoul/rtl8723bt-firmware . Then linux-firmware added their own versions of these files - its rtl8723cs_xx_fw.bin is extracted from Realtek's Windows driver, and its rtl8723cs_xx_config.bin is just a symlink to the bs config because the submitter claimed it also worked for the CS chip. However when we tried to switch the PP from our firmware to linux-firmware's, BT stopped working. It does work with linux-firmware's fw.bin and anarsoul's config.bin, so that is what we use now.

This issue tracks resolving this situation with linux-firmware upstream.

added device-pine64-pinephone label

added network::bluetooth label

I haven't tested if the old _config.bin works with the new _fw.bin.

It does actually. So possibly the linux-firmware note that:

The configuration file for the RTL8723BS part also works for the CS variant so we add the appropriate link to use that.

... is wrong.

I don't know how to extract the firmware from the Windows driver, though.

I just ran wine ./Win8/setup.exe which dropped .../drive_c/windows/system32/rtl8723c_mp_bt40_fw_asic_rom_patch.bin etc.

By Arnav Singh on 2024-09-17T13:21:35

Maybe you could report this as a bug to linux-firmware? I'm not sure how that works.

By Newbyte on 2024-09-17T13:21:35

Yes, one path forward is submitting the anarsoul cs_xx_config.bin to linux-firmware. I was trying to find its provenance since l-f will require that. megi has his own linux-firmware repo with the same files, so I asked him yesterday, but he also got it from anarsoul. anarsoul's repo got it from github.com/armbian/firmware , which in turn got it from github.com/armbian/build , and there the trail runs cold atm.

By Arnav Singh on 2024-09-17T15:43:49

changed the description

By Arnav Singh on 2024-09-17T02:45:43

mentioned in merge request !5604 (merged)

By Arnav Singh on 2024-09-17T04:06:02

Bluetooth should work again with device-pine64-pinephone-4-r2, but let's keep this open to track upstreaming the firmware somehow and being able to drop the firmware-pine64-rtl_bt package again.

By Arnav Singh on 2024-09-17T21:37:36

mentioned in commit dd3d9630

By Arnav Singh on 2024-09-20T17:45:44

Since Linux 6.10, the mainline rtw88 driver supports RTL8723CS [1], and IIRC, the firmware package was made for that driver. Now that's my hazy memory remembering posts on mastodon, but maybe it helps anyway :-)

[1]: https://lwn.net/Articles/960633/, https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.10-Networking

By Peter M on 2024-09-23T08:45:05

No, for that you need the linux-firmware-rtw88 package, not sure if it'd make sense to add it to the default install as long as the pmOS kernel doesn't enable the driver. Anyway, this issue is about firmware for the bluetooth part of the same chip.

By Airtower on 2024-09-23T08:45:05

changed title from Bluetooth broken on the PinePhone with firmware from linux-firmware to Bluetooth on the PinePhone using different firmware from linux-firmware

changed the description