Return-path: Received: from mga03.intel.com ([143.182.124.21]:22911 "EHLO mga03.intel.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1763377AbYBMVaQ convert rfc822-to-8bit (ORCPT ); Wed, 13 Feb 2008 16:30:16 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Subject: RE: [PATCH] ipw2100/ipw2200: note firmware loading caveat inKconfig help text Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 13:21:28 -0800 Message-ID: (sfid-20080213_213038_315428_BB49DB47) In-Reply-To: <1202906930.8931.44.camel@johannes.berg> References: <20080212134942.9FD589D4135@zog.reactivated.net> (sfid-20080212_141033_444486_ED50E00D) <1202906930.8931.44.camel@johannes.berg> From: "Chatre, Reinette" To: "Johannes Berg" , "Daniel Drake" Cc: , , Sender: linux-wireless-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: On Wednesday, February 13, 2008 4:49 AM, Johannes Berg wrote: > On Tue, 2008-02-12 at 13:49 +0000, Daniel Drake wrote: >> Most wireless drivers load their firmware at interface open time, >> which generally occurs after the filesystem is available. However, >> the ipw drivers load their firmware at probe time because firmware >> is required to read the device MAC address. When built-in, probe >> happens before the filesystem is available, hence device init will >> only complete successfully if the user has made special arrangements >> (including firmware plus a loader in the initramfs). > > I wonder if the MAC address can be read directly like the 3945/4965 > hw can? In this patch the text in the Kconfig help text is what we go by. The description about the MAC address in the patch description is not 100% accurate as the MAC address is read from EEPROM, not firmware. In this patch the goal is just to not have the driver built in, but a module. This ensures that firmware can be loaded at a time when the filesystem is available. Reinette