stretch install no hostmot2 in synaptic

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?

They are provided by Mesa on their website, always, at least i am sure for 5i25/6i25 although they do not need it to run.
5i23 needs that at startup or it will not work, lemme check....
You they are there as you can see in the attached pic.

OK, so we have to change the wiki, telling the user to download the firmware files from mesa web site and copy to the right location on the linuxcnc computer.

I'm not that aware of, how to change the wiki works right now, lot's of moons have past since I did that last time.
But I'll have a look at that.

wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?BasicSteps

I'm trying to find out from Peter what is needed for hostmot2 to find the firmware for the 5i20/23 cards.

JT