Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1757288AbYGPEnc (ORCPT ); Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:43:32 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1751235AbYGPEnY (ORCPT ); Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:43:24 -0400 Received: from 1wt.eu ([62.212.114.60]:1557 "EHLO 1wt.eu" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1750997AbYGPEnX (ORCPT ); Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:43:23 -0400 Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2008 06:42:29 +0200 From: Willy Tarreau To: Jeff Garzik Cc: Linus Torvalds , Frans Pop , david@lang.hm, Marcel Holtmann , David Woodhouse , 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. Message-ID: <20080716044228.GN1369@1wt.eu> References: <1216077806.27455.85.camel@shinybook.infradead.org> <200807160222.40705.elendil@planet.nl> <487D441B.5010908@garzik.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <487D441B.5010908@garzik.org> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.11 Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 2018 Lines: 48 On Tue, Jul 15, 2008 at 08:43:07PM -0400, Jeff Garzik wrote: > Linus Torvalds wrote: > > > >On Wed, 16 Jul 2008, Frans Pop wrote: > >>Where did you get this strange notion that mkinitrd is the _only_ (your > >>emphasis) thing people use? > > > >Heh. Maybe from the fact that I don't personally use modules or initrd at > >all, and have no interest in doing so ;) > > > >Ok, so people use other things. Grr. I guess we can't just require updated > >tools, because we don't know what the tools are. > > Yes, that's part of the problem :/ > > Everybody seems to love rolling their own stuff in this area, partly > necessitated I suppose by the wide variety of ways to boot on various > platforms. Exactly. To give you an idea, I have a lot of servers running on a "firmware" which consists in two parts : - a bzImage containing an initramfs with modules and a few scripts - an initrd which is in fact the rootfs When the kernel boots, it mounts the initrd, does a pivot_root and mounts its modules into /boot/$(uname -r). All my kernels run modules from /boot and not from /lib/modules, because it makes them more convenient to add and remove. So /lib/modules is just a symlink to /boot. The above process is very convenient, as it is compatible with a lot of boot methods : hard disk, CDROM, USB stick, PXE, etc... And moreover, I can have multiple kernels with only one rootfs (SMP, etc). Introducing firmware there would mean a major thinking and rework of the build (and possibly boot) process. The least invasive would probably be to stuff them next to the modules in $(uname -r)/firmware, but even then, it will take a lot of time to switch to a new system. And judging from what I see around, I'm far from being the only one not using mkinitrd. Willy -- 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/