Re: [RFC] binary firmware and modules

[Marcel Holtmann <marcel@holtmann.org>]

Hi Duncan,

> > we have two kind of devices that need firmware download. The easy and
> > clean ones which need one or two files and these basically change not
> > that often. In most cases these are the network or storage devices and
> > for exactly these we need the MODULE_FIRMWARE() support to know which
> > files have to be put into initrd.
> 
> > The messed up devices like the Speedtouch and maybe even some WiFi
> > dongles are another story.
> 
> I don't know why you consider the speedtouch to be messed up.  What's
> messed up is not the modems themselves, but the fact that we don't know
> what modems exist, and how they differ in their firmware requirements.

if you don't know the firmware requirements, then this is what I call
messed up. I now that this is basically the fault of the manufacturer or
missing specifications, but wild guessing on the firmware doesn't really
help. A kernel driver should know which firmware it needs.

> Anyway, speedtouch users also need their firmware to end up in any initrd.
> Since the driver expects all firmware files to start with "speedtch",
> the MODULE_FIRMWARE scheme would work for the speedtouch driver too as
> long as it allows the driver to specify just the initial part of a file
> name.  You could go all the way to regular expressions, but that seems
> a bit ridiculous.

I personally prefer full firmware names. This makes the dependency easy
and even an end user can call modinfo and see what firmware is expected
by a certain driver (without looking at the source code).

Regards

Marcel