solution to firmware not loading with 2.6.15 kernels

[Bill Moss <bmoss clemson edu>]

I upgraded to the Fedore Core 4 kernel-2.6.15-1.1824_FC4 and udev-071 
which is required for 2.6.15 kernels. The ipw2200 firmware failed to 
load on boot. The kernel/hotplug system conflicts with the new udev 
rules for loading firmware. Also, the in kernel radeon video driver 
produced corrupted X output.

To fix the hotplug problem, I did

       # cd /etc/hotplug
       # mv firmware.agent firmware.agent.orig

To fix the radeon video driver problem, I loaded the radeonfb module at boot

       # /sbin/mkinitrd -f --with=radeonfb /boot/initrd-$(uname -r).img 
$(uname -r)

Added to /etc/modprobe.conf

       options radeonfb radeon_force_sleep=1

which is required to make radeon sleep properly on certain Thinkpad models.

Added to /etc/grub.conf the kernel option

video=radeonfb

as in

kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.15-1.1824_FC4 ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet video=radeonfb

Reboot.

--
Bill Moss
Professor, Mathematical Sciences
Clemson University