Re: Persistent module storage [was Linux 2.4 Status / TODO page]

James A. Sutherland
2000-11-06T17:05:55Z

On Mon, 06 Nov 2000, Horst von Brand wrote:
> [Chopped down Cc: list]
> "James A. Sutherland" <jas88@cam.ac.uk> said:
> > On Mon, 06 Nov 2000, David Woodhouse wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> > > It does not know them. Correct. But with persistent module storage, it
> > > _could_ know them.
>
> > No it cannot. The desired levels have not been defined: there are no
> > desired levels to determine! Don't tamper with settings you don't need
> > to.
>
> The problem (AFAIU) is that if the levels aren't set on startup, they are
> random in some cases.

So set them on startup. NOT when the driver is first loaded. Put it in
the rc.d scripts.

> So you'd have to save (at least) the fact that they
> have been initalized.

No, you don't.

> Just that would be easy: Set aside a word in the
> kernel, which is set to 0 when booting, and which then gets the value 1
> when the hardware is initialized.

Why bother? Just set the settings *explicitly* on boot, rather than in the
driver itself.

> For more fancy stuff, splitting the
> module into data/code (as I suggested) should do the trick with minimal
> impact on the rest.

No need. Let userspace save it somewhere, if that's needed.

James.