Re: New Realtek driver

[Greg KH <gregkh@linux.com>]

On Fri, Jul 21, 2017 at 07:36:41PM -0500, Larry Finger wrote:
> On 07/21/2017 10:08 AM, Greg KH wrote:
> > On Thu, Jul 20, 2017 at 08:18:13PM -0500, Larry Finger wrote:
> > > Kalle and Greg,
> > > 
> > > Once again I find myself in the awkward position of needing to submit code
> > > to two different trees, i.e. wireless and staging.
> > > 
> > > The code in question concerns a new Realtek device, the RTL8822BE. The
> > > device is already shipping, and Realtek would like it to be available in
> > > kernel 3.14. As it consists of ~120,000 new lines of code, I have assured
> > > Realtek that 3.14 would not be possible, at least in the wireless tree. What
> > > I plan to do is submit the changes in the existing drivers through wireless,
> > > and the three totally new drivers through staging. My expectation is that
> > > this code would live for a relatively short time there, but going that route
> > > would give time for the code to be reviewed properly, but still be available
> > > in a kernel driver. All of the new code will be available in a GitHub repo
> > > maintained by Realtek for those users whose distros do not configure
> > > anything in staging.
> > > 
> > > For my part, I will push the wireless tree material as fast as I can and
> > > hope there is time available near the end of the 4.13-rcX sequence for the
> > > material to reach 4.14-rc1.
> > 
> > Why do you need a staging driver to have changes in the wireless tree?
> > Staging drivers should be self-contained and not rely on anything
> > outside of it in order to work properly (i.e. don't add code to the real
> > kernel only for a staging driver.)
> 
> Greg,
> 
> To add the new driver to staging without any other changes, I will need to
> duplicate a lot of code. That is no problem, other than the duplicate entry
> points that will show up in a makeallyes configuration. If that is what you
> want, then that is what I will do.

What do you mean by "duplicate entry points"?  Duplicate global symbols?
Something else?

confused,

greg k-h