stretch install no hostmot2 in synaptic

I installed a fresh machine with stretch and preempt following instruction on gnipsel.com, (thank's John for that)
- cp over my config files from another machine running wheezy and 2.8.
- configs fail to start because of missing Mesa firmware files.
- opening synaptic search hostmot2 -> no results

I know there is a lot of possibilities to get mesa firmware to the right place on my computer and make my new install work.
But because I see a lot of cleanup going on I'll ask

What's the "official way" to get mesa firmware installed by apt?

Ju

It's for a 5I23

can you look into
/usr/lib/linuxcnc/modules

what moduels are installed
and in terminal
locate hm2

to see if you got the files for the 5i23

To understand my post, it's not a problem of making that run on my new machine
I do just cp the firmware files from the other machine to /lib/firmware/ and it runs.

But that's not an option for users that doesn't have that files on another machine.
The linuxcnc wiki tells you to search for hostmot2 in synaptic, but that search doesn't
give any results on a clean stretch install, having a file .

/etc/apt/sources.list.d/linuxcnc-buildbot.list
that contains

deb buildbot.linuxcnc.org/ stretch master-rtpreempt
deb-src buildbot.linuxcnc.org/ stretch master-rtpreempt


responding the question of pl7i92:

a lot in /usr/lib/linuxcnc/modules/

reduced to show what seems to be related to hostmot

# ls /usr/lib/linuxcnc/modules/hm*
/usr/lib/linuxcnc/modules/hm2_7i43.so
/usr/lib/linuxcnc/modules/hm2_rpspi.so
/usr/lib/linuxcnc/modules/hm2_7i90.so
/usr/lib/linuxcnc/modules/hm2_spi.so
/usr/lib/linuxcnc/modules/hm2_eth.so
/usr/lib/linuxcnc/modules/hm2_test.so
/usr/lib/linuxcnc/modules/hm2_pci.so

# locate hm2
#

linuxcnc is looking for //lib/firmware/hm2/5i23/SVST4_8.BIT

the related lines from error report:

Could not locate firmware "//lib/firmware/hm2/5i23/SVST4_8.BIT". (No such file or directory)
hm2/hm2_5i23.0: firmware hm2/5i23/SVST4_8.BIT not found
hm2/hm2_5i23.0: install the package containing the firmware.
hm2_5i23.0: board fails HM2 registration

As I wrote in my last post, I do have that firmware on another machine, so I don't
need to build them myself.

The question is, what do another users do if they come across that problem?

What do you do suggest?

Changing the wiki to say
- users have to install the Xilinx ISE and compile the firmware themselves
- hacking the apt source list file to get the firmware from older Debian distribution
- downloading it from somewhere else in the web

I think we shouldn't provide hack's, better is straight forward install.

Maybe seb can have a look at that and figure out why that stuff disappeared in stretch.

I'm on building a deb from master now. If it's done I'll see if the firmware gets installed.

This needs to be in the STETCH Documentation on howto install
the eth will work from simple install but expanding to special cards will need a self interfear with new compile

README file neds to be changed from 2.8
wiki updated on 5i23 -> need driver compile from 2.8

You guys are talking about drivers.
I may be ignorant but isn't it the firmware for the Mesa cards that's missing?
If I copy the firmware to the right folder on my new stretch install all works fine.

On my understanding, the firmware is the bit code that get's loaded into the FPGA
that sits on mesa cards like 5I23.
That code is not easy to compile/generate. Installing the xilix ISE is pretty heavy load.
Isn't it easier to provide precompiled firmware for that cards in binary and include that
in the distro tree as it was before?