[linux-audio-user] fxload and Midisport firmware

[Pedro Lopez-Cabanillas]

On Wednesday, 15 November 2006 12:09:44 -0500, Lee Revell wrote:
> On Wed, 2006-11-15 at 09:26 +0100, Clemens Ladisch wrote:
> > Florin Andrei wrote:
> > > I upgraded to Fedora 6 and now I want to reinstall the firmware for my
> > > M-Audio Midisport 4x4 interface:
> > >
> > > configure: error: /sbin/fxload not found; please install the fxload
> > > package first
> > >
> > > The problem is, fxload is not included in FC6 and I think I remember
> > > even with FC5 it was deprecated.
> >
> > Ask the FC guys why they did this.
>
> Probably because drivers are supposed to use request_firmware()
> interface now.

Midisport devices are EZ-USB devices, based on the AN2131 chips manufactured 
by Cypress (formerly Anchor Chips) [1]. These devices use a special protocol 
to transfer the firmware using a USB control endpoint. For this device was  
designed fxload [2] as an userspace tool. It is both convenient and reliable.

Several years ago, there was a kernel driver named ezusb2131 [3] which has 
been abandoned. Quoting his author: "There is no need to port this driver to 
the 2.6 kernel, another method for downloading EZUSB2131 boards in the 2.6 
kernel (see fxload section)".

fxload has served us in the past with the help of hotplug, and it works now 
with udev, too. A solution using request_firmware() would need perhaps a 
kernel driver to transfer the firmware, in a similar way to the old 
ezusb2131, and I  don't see an advantage. On the other hand, it would require 
the ALSA USB kernel driver to know the firmware file name for every USB MIDI 
or audio device based on the EZ-USB chip. I would like to reminder you that 
for some Midisport devices: Midisport 1x1, 2x2 and also some Steinberg model,  
there is a GPL libre firmware named ezusbmidi [4] that can be used instead of  
the M-Audio proprietary files. 

[1] http://www.cypress.com/
[2] http://linux-hotplug.sourceforge.net/?selected=usb
[3] http://ezusb2131.sourceforge.net/
[4] http://downloads.sourceforge.net/linux-hotplug/firmwarehotplug-0.1.tar.gz

Regards,
Pedro