It should be possible to provide the cyw43 firmware from the app

[usedbytes]

I've implemented a bootloader for the Pico W allowing code upload via WiFi: picowota; unfortunately this means having a copy of the WiFi firmware in the bootloader code, and another copy in the app code.

It would be good if there were a way to pass a pointer to the firmware binary to the cyw43 library(ies), so that one copy can be stored in the bootloader, and the app code can just refer to that.

This would be less relevant with #909, but may still be worth considering.

[kilograham]

Yes, this has been in the back of my mind and also relates to the implementation of #909 - i.e. it should be possible to pass a block iterator to the driver.

Also a cyw43_driver issue, but this is as good a place as any to track

[kripton]

See also georgerobotics/cyw43-driver#4

[earlephilhower]

@usedbytes , one idea which I think would work now is to make the WiFi BLOB its own region of flash and not part of the actual linked executables. Sort of a WiFi blob partition, if you will.

You'd need to adjust the flash ending address (assuming you put it at the top of flash to make things nice and simple for you) and add PROVIDEs in the .ld linker file to point to the fixed address and any vars you define (i.e. length, etc.) The your OTA could use the same copy as the main app, because both would be using the PROVIDEd address (i.e. it would be as if it were in ROM to the app and OTA shim).

[samveen]

Am I correct in assuming that for the Pico W the BT firmware and the WiFi firmware will be a single BLOB, given #1164? If not, would something similar be possible for the BT firmware BLOB too?

[peterharperuk]

Yes, currently, we have added the bt firmware onto the end of the "wifi" firmware. I guess it's possible things will change before the code is merged but I don't see much sense having it as a separate object.