Re: [PATCH] MODULE_FIRMWARE for binary firmware(s)

Duncan Sands
2006-04-19T09:08:44Z

Hi Jon,

> However, there is right now little mechanism in place to automatically
> determine which binary firmware blobs must be included with a kernel in
> order to satisfy the prerequisites of these drivers. This affects
> vendors, but also regular users to a certain extent too.
>
> The attached patch introduces MODULE_FIRMWARE as a mechanism for
> advertising that a particular firmware file is to be loaded - it will
> then show up via modinfo and could be used e.g. when packaging a kernel.

I haven't really understood what problem this solves. Is this just a
standardised form of documentation, or are you imagining that an automatic
tool will use this to auto include a minimal set of firmware files in an
initrd? I'm thinking of something like this: (1) redhat (or whoever) ships
firmware files for every driver under the sun in /lib/firmware; (2) redhat
wants to allow users to have a customized initrd with only essential drivers;
(3) the tool goes through the list of essential drivers, looks up the firmware
string via MODULE_FIRMWARE, finds the file in /lib/firmware, and includes it
in the initrd.

All the best,

Duncan.