Re: [RFC][PATCH] add driver matching priorities

[Greg KH <greg@kroah.com>]

On Thu, Feb 10, 2005 at 04:37:03PM -0500, Adam Belay wrote:
> On Thu, 2005-02-10 at 18:45 +0000, Russell King wrote:
> > On Thu, Feb 10, 2005 at 12:18:37PM -0500, Adam Belay wrote:
> > > > I think the issue that Al raises about drivers grabbing devices, and
> > > > then trying to unbind them might be a real problem.
> > > 
> > > I agree.  Do you think registering every in-kernel driver before probing
> > > hardware would solve this problem?
> > 
> > In which case, consider whether we should be tainting the kernel if
> > someone loads a device driver, it binds to a device, and then they
> > unload that driver.
> > 
> > It's precisely the same situation, and precisely the same mechanics
> > as what I've suggested should be going on here.  If one scenario is
> > inherently buggy, so is the other.
> > 
> 
> I think it would depend on whether the user makes the device busy before
> the driver is unloaded.  Different device classes may have different
> requirements for when and how a device can be removed.  Are there other
> issues as well?  Maybe there are ways to improve driver start and stop
> mechanics.

We never fail a device unbind from a driver, so this isn't as big a deal
as I originally thought.  Yes, userspace can get messy, but as userspace
was the one that loaded the new driver to bind, it's acceptable.

So, care to resubmit your patch?

thanks,

greg k-h