From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1755611Ab0I2MgW (ORCPT ); Wed, 29 Sep 2010 08:36:22 -0400 Received: from mail-fx0-f46.google.com ([209.85.161.46]:52545 "EHLO mail-fx0-f46.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1755481Ab0I2MgU (ORCPT ); Wed, 29 Sep 2010 08:36:20 -0400 DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=subject:from:reply-to:to:cc:in-reply-to:references:content-type :date:message-id:mime-version:x-mailer:content-transfer-encoding; b=ZffTwg2eLBHC8Er3o639tWeH+Ay3eNClrSkI7c+MapNNXGA6GHbQiwCEXTd2ml+vRa RFdeTOZiQVjQxhNCr9BYFG7ZoFzFlWVjkXTB9+dRw+GAwKHiao55ggqxNGgY2wJpgySI NEjssXgcLpT8VUNZGlMO7s4LUS9AYFCsyXO3w= Subject: Re: [RFC] Online firmware upgrade in non-embedded systems From: Artem Bityutskiy Reply-To: dedekind1@gmail.com To: Ben Hutchings Cc: netdev , linux-kernel , linux-mtd , sf-linux-drivers 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 X-Mailer: Evolution 2.30.3 (2.30.3-1.fc13) Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org 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)