Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Wed, 28 Nov 2001 10:51:26 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Wed, 28 Nov 2001 10:51:13 -0500 Received: from hermes.toad.net ([162.33.130.251]:38545 "EHLO hermes.toad.net") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Wed, 28 Nov 2001 10:49:54 -0500 Subject: Re: PNP Bios From: Thomas Hood To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Evolution/0.99.2 (Preview Release) Date: 28 Nov 2001 10:50:42 -0500 Message-Id: <1006962643.11753.2.camel@thanatos> Mime-Version: 1.0 Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Alan Cox wrote: > I plan to submit PnP BIOS to 2.5 but not 2.4 - it needs more study yet I presume that the aspect of the driver that needs more study is the interface between the pnpbios driver and other device drivers. The pnpbios driver the -ac kernels had a driver registration interface. Is that the only or the best way for drivers to use the PnP BIOS? Given that a lot of drivers already use the isa-pnp driver, wouldn't it be cleaner if the pnpbios driver were integrated with the isa-pnp driver, such that isa-pnp could used pnpbios as a slave to do its configuration dirty work? Then there would be just one pnp interface for all drivers to use. However we decide to make pnpbios services available to drivers, we have smp and hotplug issues to sort out too. Although it may be appropriate for us to think more about the latter issues, I see no reason why we shouldn't put the core functions of the pnpbios driver (viz., the PnP BIOS interface functions), along with the /proc interface to these, into 2.5 right away. For that matter, they can go into 2.4 as well. They have been pretty well tested by now. This would at least allow us to use lspnp and setpnp to control the way the PnP BIOS configures our machines. Mark the driver "experimental" if you like, but please put it in. Thomas - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/