From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from mail-fx0-f49.google.com ([209.85.161.49]) by bombadil.infradead.org with esmtp (Exim 4.72 #1 (Red Hat Linux)) id 1P0vtV-0007DF-16 for linux-mtd@lists.infradead.org; Wed, 29 Sep 2010 12:36:21 +0000 Received: by fxm15 with SMTP id 15so496684fxm.36 for ; Wed, 29 Sep 2010 05:36:19 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: [RFC] Online firmware upgrade in non-embedded systems From: Artem Bityutskiy To: Ben Hutchings In-Reply-To: <1285696787.2282.45.camel@achroite.uk.solarflarecom.com> References: <1285696787.2282.45.camel@achroite.uk.solarflarecom.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2010 15:34:18 +0300 Message-ID: <1285763658.2437.112.camel@localhost> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Cc: netdev , sf-linux-drivers , linux-mtd , linux-kernel Reply-To: dedekind1@gmail.com List-Id: Linux MTD discussion mailing list List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , On Tue, 2010-09-28 at 18:59 +0100, Ben Hutchings wrote: > Currently the sfc network driver is optionally combined with an MTD > driver (CONFIG_SFC_MTD) which exposes all upgradable firmware and > configuration partitions in flash. This works nicely in kernels with > MTD enabled, but since MTD is mainly used in embedded systems with > on-board flash it is often disabled in distribution kernels and custom > kernels alike. This leaves users of sfc unable to upgrade firmware > without rebuilding the kernel or booting some other distribution. The > lack of widespread MTD support is a regular cause of support requests. At least Fedora does have MTD enabled. But I guess commercial distributions like RHEL might have it disabled (but I did not check), and I think I could guess the reason for this. -- Best Regards, Artem Bityutskiy (Артём Битюцкий)