Re: [patch 2.6.12-rc3] Adds persistent entryies using request_firmware_nowaitManuel Estrada Sainz <ranty@debian.org>,

[Dmitry Torokhov <dtor_core@ameritech.net>]

On Wednesday 15 June 2005 19:34, Abhay Salunke wrote:
> This is a patch to make the /sys/class/firmware entries persistent. 
> This has been tested with dell_rbu; dell_rbu was modified to not call
> request_firmware_nowait again form the callback function. 
> 
> The new mechanism to make the entries persistent is as follows
> 1> echo 0 > /sys/class/firmware/timeout
> 2> echo 2 > /sys/class/firmware/xxx/loading
> 
> step 1 prevents timeout to occur , step 2 makes the entry xxx persistent
> 
> if we want to remove persistence then do this
> ech0 -2 > /sys/class/firmware/xxx/loading
> 

Hi,

I have the following issues with the patch:

- since "persistency" (or rather repeat loading) is controlled from
  userspace, drivers don't have control over it. This way every user
  of request_firmware_nowait has to be ready to process more than one
  firmware load.

- There is no way to "cancel" firmware request from the driver. You
  will not be able to safely unload users of request_firmware_nowait().
  Since loader is rearming you can't use firmware handler function to
  signal when request has been processed.

I think that such re-arming reqests are much better implemented in
individual drivers.

-- 
Dmitry