From: Erik Hensema <usenet@hensema.xs4all.nl>
Subject: Re: /proc/pci deprecation?
Date: Sat, 7 Dec 2002 12:35:49 +0000 (UTC)
Message-ID: <slrnav3qp5.1c2.usenet@bender.home.hensema.net>
References: <997222131F7@vcnet.vc.cvut.cz>
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Petr Vandrovec (VANDROVE@vc.cvut.cz) wrote:
> On  6 Dec 02 at 16:13, Patrick Mochel wrote:
>> 
>> > IIRC it was one of (a) deprecated, (b) removed, or (c) almost removed in
>> > the past, and Linus un-deprecated it.  The logic back then was that it
>> > provides a quick summary of a lot of useful info, a la /proc/cpuinfo and
>> > /proc/meminfo.  i.e. you don't need lspci installed, just been /bin/cat.
>> 
>> Ok, I can see that. But, are there really many systems that do not come with
>> lspci(8) pre-installed? I would expect that most distributions do; at least
>> the one I use does..
>> 
>> But, look the usage model. Who queries PCI information from the system? I
>> would argue a) developers, b) power users, and c) users hitting a bug. 
> 
> It is invaluable during installation, when no lspci is installed yet.
> I know that I need e100/eepro100 for 
> 'Ethernet controller: Intel Corp. 82801BA/BAM/CA/CAM E', but I do not
> have even slightest idea what device 8086:2449 is, whether USB or NIC or
> VGA or some bridge.

Every half-decent installer autodetects all PCI devices. AND had lspci
installed in the install image.

> Next problem is that some drivers want to print "user readable" hardware
> name to user, and although some have its own name database (e100), some
> use name from pcidev...

Ugh :-/ That's a reason to keep it around then.

>> > I do grant you it would make various __init sections and in-memory 
>> > structures smaller if we eliminated the names...   do we want to?  Sure we
>> > have lseisa and lspci and lsusb, et. al.  Does that obviate the need for a
>> > simple summary of attached hardware?
>> 
>> IMO, yes, since those tools provide the summary, and exist almost purely in
>> userspace. I forgot to mention in the orginal email that we could also drop
>> the PCI names database, right? This would save a considerable amount in the
>> kernel image alone..
> 
> If you want, make it user configurable like it was during 2.2.x. But
> I personally prefer descriptive names and system overview I can parse 
> without having mounted /usr to get working lspci.

lspci should be installed in /sbin.

-- 
Erik Hensema (erik@hensema.net)
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