Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1758340AbXIRTVm (ORCPT ); Tue, 18 Sep 2007 15:21:42 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1754495AbXIRTVe (ORCPT ); Tue, 18 Sep 2007 15:21:34 -0400 Received: from 74-93-104-97-Washington.hfc.comcastbusiness.net ([74.93.104.97]:42486 "EHLO sunset.davemloft.net" rhost-flags-OK-FAIL-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1754203AbXIRTVd (ORCPT ); Tue, 18 Sep 2007 15:21:33 -0400 Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2007 12:20:34 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <20070918.122034.83625273.davem@davemloft.net> To: hpa@zytor.com Cc: mchan@broadcom.com, vda.linux@googlemail.com, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, netdev@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: bnx2 dirver's firmware images From: David Miller In-Reply-To: <46F01BDE.6020902@zytor.com> References: <1190141114.9540.216.camel@dell> <20070918.112337.74737433.davem@davemloft.net> <46F01BDE.6020902@zytor.com> X-Mailer: Mew version 5.1.52 on Emacs 21.4 / Mule 5.0 (SAKAKI) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1381 Lines: 35 From: "H. Peter Anvin" Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2007 11:41:34 -0700 > David Miller wrote: > > > > I don't like it because it means people have to setup full initrd's > > in order to do network booting with such network cards. > > > > klibc could help with that, if there is interest in exploring that > avenue again. I appreciate the effort you put into klibc and the offer to make initrd's easier to build. But the point is that the initrd shouldn't be necessary in the first place. There becomes zero point in building these drivers statically into the kernel, which many of us do specifically to avoid module loading, initrds, and all that fuss. Because the driver is totally crippled even though it's been fully built into the main kernel image. I mean, it's so incredibly stupid and makes kernel development that much more difficult. Every new dependency, be it requiring initrd or something else, is one more barrier added to kernel development. I really pine for the days where everything was so simple, and initrd and modules were the odd ball cases, most developers built everything into their kernel image. - 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/