Messages in this thread | | | Date | Fri, 30 May 2008 11:52:42 +0200 | From | Takashi Iwai <> | Subject | Re: [Ksummit-2008-discuss] RFC: Moving firmware blobs out of the kernel. |
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At Thu, 29 May 2008 14:57:38 -0700, Yinghai Lu wrote: > > On Thu, May 29, 2008 at 2:31 PM, David Miller <davem@davemloft.net> wrote: > > From: "Yinghai Lu" <yhlu.kernel@gmail.com> > > Date: Thu, 29 May 2008 13:55:16 -0700 > > > >> driver should check fw version... > > > > This alone is not a reason to rip the firmware out into a seperate > > tree. And I am absolutely not convinced that the cases where this > > matters all universally even use firmware versions. > > > > I've installed the wrong ipw2200 on several occaisions. > > > > Furthermore, it's about distributing what works with what it's meant > > to work with. With this seperate scheme, I can still link in the > > wrong firmware file (the driver doesn't check the firmware version > > until it executes) and the driver won't work. So this moves the > > validation to run time, which users typically don't appreciate. > > I agree. I hate to have two klibc (one for 32 bit, and one for 64bit) > to for initramfs to load FW for qlogic... > > dwmw2 's new patches to put all fw in /firmware, and built them into > kernel could avoid that... > > and could make the build process to check fw version to match with > driver in different kernel version later...
OTOH, it doesn't give you any error at build time even if you forget to put a firmware image beforehand. The kernel continues to look for a non-existing external firmware file. In the old code, this can't happen.
It's just a small drawback, and I still like the idea very well, though.
Takashi
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