Messages in this thread | | | Date | Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:24:27 -0400 | From | Jeff Garzik <> | Subject | Re: [GIT *] Allow request_firmware() to be satisfied from in-kernel, use it in more drivers. |
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Willy Tarreau wrote: > On Tue, Jul 15, 2008 at 04:26:41PM -0400, Jeff Garzik wrote: >> To be extremely concrete, firmware-in-module is >> >> * add Kconfig option (kernel-wide or per-driver, dunno) asking >> "build firmware into drivers, as before?" >> >> * tweak build process to build firmware into foo.ko output, >> probably in a specially marked ELF section >> >> * get request_firmware() to automatically notice that the >> MODULE_FIRMWARE() was built into this driver, and to >> look at the special ELF section for its data > > Jeff, just thinking, wouldn't it be slightly easier to move the firmware > in a separate module on its own and just add a dependency, so that foo.ko > automatically loads foo-fw.ko ? I know it will be slightly differente, but > would not change in-site deployment workflows nor installed scripts.
Quite true. That's definitely an option, but I feel that building the firmware into the driver module itself would be about the same level of difficulty, but carry with it additional benefits:
Users and distros can be _certain_ their driver setup will not break due to these changes, if you have Kconfig options available to reproduce exactly what 2.6.26 produced [firmware compiled into the driver itself].
If Kconfig options are set such that the outputs are the same in 2.6.26 and 2.6.27 -- vmlinuz and kernel modules -- then that should close windows of regression both real and theoretical, by producing _exactly_ the same outputs.
Jeff
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