Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1758098AbYGOUId (ORCPT ); Tue, 15 Jul 2008 16:08:33 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1753346AbYGOUI0 (ORCPT ); Tue, 15 Jul 2008 16:08:26 -0400 Received: from smtp1.linux-foundation.org ([140.211.169.13]:49885 "EHLO smtp1.linux-foundation.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1750967AbYGOUIZ (ORCPT ); Tue, 15 Jul 2008 16:08:25 -0400 Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2008 13:07:37 -0700 (PDT) From: Linus Torvalds To: Marcel Holtmann cc: David Woodhouse , Frans Pop , jeff@garzik.org, arjan@infradead.org, akpm@linux-foundation.org, alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: [GIT *] Allow request_firmware() to be satisfied from in-kernel, use it in more drivers. In-Reply-To: <1216151640.27242.90.camel@violet.holtmann.net> Message-ID: References: <1216077806.27455.85.camel@shinybook.infradead.org> <20080714164119.99c33d5b.akpm@linux-foundation.org> <20080714165956.7fe2d4ee@infradead.org> <487C0365.5030203@garzik.org> <487C0365.5030203@garzik.org> <200807151757.10626.elendil@planet.nl> <1216149637.27242.65.camel@violet.holtmann.net> <1216150616.27455.377.camel@shinybook.infradead.org> <1216151640.27242.90.camel@violet.holtmann.net> User-Agent: Alpine 1.10 (LFD 962 2008-03-14) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1512 Lines: 37 On Tue, 15 Jul 2008, Marcel Holtmann wrote: > > you don't have to. We extend udev once and then it will always work. Umm. The thing is, people running new kernels with old user land is not just supposed to work, it's _really_ supposed to work. It's what I do. Something that breaks that has to have damn good reasons to break it. So I do not disagree with Jeff on that point _at_all_. I'm in violent agreement with Jeff on the fact that we should not require system updates for the kernel to do the right thing. The thing I disagree with Jeff on is that he then seems to turn that into something very negative ("let's not separate the firmware at all"). And I'd much rather just fix it. And that means that if people can point to udevd's that get confused - or lack of udevd's entirely - both of which sound very likely to me, then we should have a graceful fallback position. And just supporting the notion of loading the firmware directly sounds like an obvious such case. It may not be the _only_ solution, for example, which is why I'd actually like to see people point to the _actual_ reported problems. IOW, the problems shouldn't a "don't do this" thing. They should be a "ok, that problem happened, we can solve it by doing X". Linus -- 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/