Re: [parisc-linux] initcall and setup

[Grant Grundler <grundler@cup.hp.com>]

Matthew Wilcox wrote:
> 
> One of the things which has changed during 2.3 development is
> initialisation.
...
> Unfortunately, we can't take advantage of this, because we don't yet have
> ELF tools.  This is implemented through an ELF section called __initcall
> which contains the address of the function to call.  We could try to hack
> something together with SOM, but I'd really rather not put the work in
> that will just be dumped later.

Just a clarification: The kernel will use ELF once the tool chain is
in place. The kernel is SOM now only because of our dependency
on HP-UX ld. Any forcasts for when we can switch to ELF?


...
> and why if you diff our kernel against Linus', you will find that we have
> reinserted some of the explicit calls to the setup routines that have
> been eliminated from the mainline tree.  It also explains why sometimes
> a driver may not be called even though you compiled it in.

Any general rules on where to reinsert stuff? (eg tulip_probe)
In the same place it's in the linux-2.2?
Is someone making a note to make sure the reinserted code gets
dropped when we migrate to either the next 2.3 (or possibly 2.4) release?

thanks,
grant

Grant Grundler
Unix Development Lab
+1.408.447.7253