Re: [PATCH] Open Firmware device tree virtual filesystem

[Benjamin Herrenschmidt <benh@kernel.crashing.org>]

On Tue, 2007-01-02 at 12:37 +0100, Segher Boessenkool wrote:
> >> So please do this crap right.
> >
> > I strongly agree. Nowadays, both powerpc and sparc use an in-memory 
> > copy
> > of the tree (wether you use the flattened format during the trampoline
> > from OF runtime to the kernel or not is a different matter, we created
> > that for the sake of kexec and embedded devices with no real OF, but 
> > the
> > end result is the same, a kernel based tree structure).
> 
> Are you really suggesting that using a kernel copy of the
> device tree is the correct thing to do, and the only correct
> thing to do -- with the sole argument that "that's what the
> current ports do"?

Well, there are reasons why that's what the current ports do :-)

We could of course have the interface work either on a copy of the tree
or on a real OF (though that means changing things like get_property on
powerpc and fixing the gazillions of users) but I tend to think that
working on a copy always is more efficient.

Ben.