Re: experimental patch for toshiba_acpi

[Matthew Garrett <mjg59@srcf.ucam.org>]

On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 05:53:39PM +0000, Jonathan Buzzard wrote:
> 
> On Wed, 2009-02-25 at 17:28 +0000, Matthew Garrett wrote:
> > The same argument encourages us to put rfkill and brightness control 
> > support in a userland tool, despite the existing kernel interfaces for 
> > controlling them. We could replace almost every driver in platform/x86 
> > with a generic driver that allowed arbitrary ACPI methods to be called 
> > and gave access to EC bits. The reason we haven't done this is because 
> > that's what the kernel is there for.
> 
> Quite correct they should be removed. The first step of which is to
> provide a generic interface to the HCI.

Yeah. No.

> You do it, test it then maintain it then. To claim that maintaining this
> in kernel space is as easy as users space is patently ludicrous.

How so? C is C. Whether you do it in userspace or kernel space, all you 
have to do is make a function call with the appropriate arguments.

> A "proper" kernel driver as you put it is is completely inappropriate.
> You want to unnecessarily pollute the kernel with hundreds of lines of
> code for no actual gain in functionality.

Yes. I want a proper kernel driver.

-- 
Matthew Garrett | mjg59@srcf.ucam.org