From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S932286AbWDRPlU (ORCPT ); Tue, 18 Apr 2006 11:41:20 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S932285AbWDRPlU (ORCPT ); Tue, 18 Apr 2006 11:41:20 -0400 Received: from coyote.holtmann.net ([217.160.111.169]:9408 "EHLO mail.holtmann.net") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S932282AbWDRPlR (ORCPT ); Tue, 18 Apr 2006 11:41:17 -0400 Subject: Re: [RFC] binary firmware and modules From: Marcel Holtmann To: Duncan Sands Cc: Jon Masters , Linux Kernel In-Reply-To: <200604181659.04657.duncan.sands@math.u-psud.fr> References: <1145088656.23134.54.camel@localhost.localdomain> <200604181537.47183.duncan.sands@math.u-psud.fr> <1145370171.10255.58.camel@localhost> <200604181659.04657.duncan.sands@math.u-psud.fr> Content-Type: text/plain Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 17:41:18 +0200 Message-Id: <1145374878.10255.69.camel@localhost> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Evolution 2.6.1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.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