Re: [PATCH] [MTD] driver/Makefile: Initialize "mtd" and "spi" before "net"

[Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>]

On Tue, 18 Aug 2009 12:34:04 -0400 Sudhakar Rajashekhara <sudhakar.raj@ti.com> wrote:

> On TI's da850/omap-l138 EVM, MAC address is stored in SPI flash.
> 
> This patch changes the initialization sequence of the drivers
> by moving mtd and spi ahead of net in drivers/Makefile thereby
> enabling da850/omap-l138 ethernet driver to read the MAC address
> while booting.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Sudhakar Rajashekhara <sudhakar.raj@ti.com>
> ---
>  drivers/Makefile |    4 ++--
>  1 files changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/drivers/Makefile b/drivers/Makefile
> index bc4205d..2a1d41f 100644
> --- a/drivers/Makefile
> +++ b/drivers/Makefile
> @@ -42,6 +42,8 @@ obj-y				+= macintosh/
>  obj-$(CONFIG_IDE)		+= ide/
>  obj-$(CONFIG_SCSI)		+= scsi/
>  obj-$(CONFIG_ATA)		+= ata/
> +obj-$(CONFIG_MTD)		+= mtd/
> +obj-$(CONFIG_SPI)		+= spi/
>  obj-y				+= net/
>  obj-$(CONFIG_ATM)		+= atm/
>  obj-$(CONFIG_FUSION)		+= message/
> @@ -50,8 +52,6 @@ obj-y				+= ieee1394/
>  obj-$(CONFIG_UIO)		+= uio/
>  obj-y				+= cdrom/
>  obj-y				+= auxdisplay/
> -obj-$(CONFIG_MTD)		+= mtd/
> -obj-$(CONFIG_SPI)		+= spi/
>  obj-$(CONFIG_PCCARD)		+= pcmcia/
>  obj-$(CONFIG_DIO)		+= dio/
>  obj-$(CONFIG_SBUS)		+= sbus/

That isn't a particularly maintainable way of fixing this, especially
as there are no comments in that Makefile to prevent someone from
rebreaking it in the future.

A better fix would be to use suitably prioritised initcalls - see
include/linux/init.h around line 187.