Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1761386AbYGOCYU (ORCPT ); Mon, 14 Jul 2008 22:24:20 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1752493AbYGOCYJ (ORCPT ); Mon, 14 Jul 2008 22:24:09 -0400 Received: from bombadil.infradead.org ([18.85.46.34]:41642 "EHLO bombadil.infradead.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752229AbYGOCYI (ORCPT ); Mon, 14 Jul 2008 22:24:08 -0400 Subject: Re: [GIT *] Allow request_firmware() to be satisfied from in-kernel, use it in more drivers. From: David Woodhouse To: David Miller Cc: jeff@garzik.org, david@lang.hm, arjan@infradead.org, akpm@linux-foundation.org, torvalds@linux-foundation.org, alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org In-Reply-To: <20080714.191727.223788995.davem@davemloft.net> References: <1216082213.27455.109.camel@shinybook.infradead.org> <487C0788.7030907@garzik.org> <20080714.191727.223788995.davem@davemloft.net> Content-Type: text/plain Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2008 19:23:55 -0700 Message-Id: <1216088636.27455.163.camel@shinybook.infradead.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Evolution 2.22.2 (2.22.2-2.fc9) Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-SRS-Rewrite: SMTP reverse-path rewritten from by bombadil.infradead.org See http://www.infradead.org/rpr.html Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1378 Lines: 33 On Mon, 2008-07-14 at 19:17 -0700, David Miller wrote: > When module support was added, guess what? I could still build a > completely static kernel image like I always could. > > And in fact, to this day, that's what I personally do because that's > how I like my kernels. Good. You can still do precisely that, and build the firmware into your kernel. You can have exactly what you like. Hey, you can build even _more_ firmware into your kernel now. You can have NFS-root on devices you previously had to use an initrd for. hth. > But this request_firmware() change does not allow one to get what he > could get before, which is a completely self-contained driver module > object file. > > This is the difference between providing an option and making > something mandatory. This firmware split up is now mandatory. In all the years we've been using request_firmware(), nobody ever asked for a way to build the firmware _into_ the .ko file, until now. Why is it suddenly so important for a small handful of older network drivers, when nobody else has ever seen the need for it -- even in modern network drivers? -- dwmw2 -- 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/