Re: [PATCH] call drv->shutdown at rmmod

[Russell King <rmk@arm.linux.org.uk>]

On Thu, Aug 14, 2003 at 08:54:43AM +0100, Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> Why do we have shutdown at all?  Can't we just call ->remove on shutdown
> so the device always get's into proper unitialized state on shutdown, too?

That's likely to remove the keyboard driver, and some people like
to configure their box so that ctrl-alt-del halts the system, and
a further ctrl-alt-del reboots the system once halted.

There are also some bus drivers which want to know the difference
between "device (driver) was removed" and "device was shutdown",
eg, for setting bus-specific stuff back into a state where the
machine can be soft-rebooted.

With the shutdown callback, drivers get the option whether to
handle this event or not.  Combining it with remove gives them no
option what so ever, and bus drivers loose this knowledge.

-- 
Russell King (rmk@arm.linux.org.uk)                The developer of ARM Linux
             http://www.arm.linux.org.uk/personal/aboutme.html