Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1763206AbYGOVpc (ORCPT ); Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:45:32 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1754965AbYGOVpW (ORCPT ); Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:45:22 -0400 Received: from smtp1.linux-foundation.org ([140.211.169.13]:37697 "EHLO smtp1.linux-foundation.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1753814AbYGOVpV (ORCPT ); Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:45:21 -0400 Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2008 14:43:53 -0700 (PDT) From: Linus Torvalds To: david@lang.hm cc: Marcel Holtmann , 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: 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: 1842 Lines: 45 On Tue, 15 Jul 2008, david@lang.hm wrote: > > a kernel compiled with this option would just drop-in to an older distro with > zero impact. newer distros that have updated their userspace tools could > compile with different options and have the firmware seperate. The 'zero impact' is what doesn't make sense here. You are supposed to be able to run ol distributions, yes. But that doesn't mean that you can necessarily just plop things in the same way as you always did before. For example, you have to rewrite your distro's initrd if you are using modules. You cannot just re-use the modules in the distro initrd. So doing a new kernel has _never_ been 'zero impact' in the sense that you could just switch vmlinux files around. (Btw, I personally actually want my kernel to be _truly_ zero impact, but that also means that I don't use modules - because that way I really can avoid changing even the initrd image too. But that also already works) Why is it suddenly so important that a kernel be 'zero impact' for that module case, when it's never been zero impact for that case before? You had to rewrite the initrd to begin with, but now you're not willing to do it again, just because you have to rewrite it slightly _differently_? THAT is what I find so odd. The inability to accept just a slight change in kernel build. But whatever. This really isn't worth it. The request_firmware() thing will clearly happen regardless, and as long as the backwards compat code is small and Jeff writes it, what do I care? Even if I think it looks largely pointless.. 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/