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Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 16:24:27 -0500
From: Jeff Garzik <jgarzik@pobox.com>
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To: Greg KH <greg@kroah.com>
CC: David Brownell <david-b@pacbell.net>, rusty@rustcorp.com.au,
       kaos <kaos@ocs.com.au>, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: 2.5.47bk2 + current modutils == broken hotplug
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Greg KH wrote:

> On Wed, Nov 13, 2002 at 03:59:56PM -0500, Jeff Garzik wrote:
>
> >(tangent warning!)
> >Another long term idea I would eventually like to realize is the removal
> >of device ids from the C source code.  I don't care where they go --
> >drivers/net/pci_ids [per directory ids?], drivers/net/3c59x.meta,
> >whereever.  Anywhere but the C source code.  It's quite silly to require
> >a driver rebuild just to add a single PCI id, and further, embedding
> >metadata in C source is rarely a good idea in the long term.  [reference
> >some of Linus's counter-arguments when it was mentioned that Donald
> >Becker's method of including Config.{in,help} data in C source might be
> >useful]
>
>
> True, this would be nice, but how would the driver know to bind to a new
> device, if it isn't rebuilt, and doesn't know about the new id that was
> just added?  In the current scheme of driver matching to devices, I
> don't see how this could be done.


I think that truly seamless rebinding is doable but would require too 
much additional complexity in the kernel.  Rebinding to a new id table 
between unregister() ... register() pairs, or between mod unload and mod 
load, should be enough to be useable for 98% of the cases.

It should be noted that David Hinds' pcmcia-cs package stores id in an 
external database.  There are both positive and negative lessons that 
have been learned from that experience (WRT external id tables only! 
:):)) too.


> Not to say I would not want to see this changed to allow this to happen,
> I'm very tired of telling USB Palm users to get a new kernel version
> just because a single device id was added which their new device has.


Indeed :/  There are also issues like vendors who want to GPG-sign 
drivers, and updating the PCI id table makes the GnuPG signature and the 
certification that goes along with it invalid, requiring a vendor update.

	Jeff


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