From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Ben Hutchings Subject: Re: [PATCH net-next-2.6] net: Changes to support the "-f" option of ethtool. Date: Wed, 05 Aug 2009 14:06:07 +0100 Message-ID: <1249477567.2781.21.camel@achroite> References: <20090805123211.GB6592@serverengines.com> <20090805123704.GC6592@serverengines.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: davem@davemloft.net, jgarzik@pobox.com, netdev@vger.kernel.org To: Ajit Khaparde Return-path: Received: from smarthost03.mail.zen.net.uk ([212.23.3.142]:35116 "EHLO smarthost03.mail.zen.net.uk" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S933713AbZHENGP (ORCPT ); Wed, 5 Aug 2009 09:06:15 -0400 In-Reply-To: <20090805123704.GC6592@serverengines.com> Sender: netdev-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: On Wed, 2009-08-05 at 18:07 +0530, Ajit Khaparde wrote: > The patch intends to use the request_firmware() interface to pick the > firmware image file. > I had missed this in the original post. Thanks. [...] Thanks for the clarification. request_firmware() is meant for loading firmware that is stored in volatile memory (RAM) on the device and therefore needs to be installed on the host. When the firmware is stored in flash on the device, updates only need to be used once, and there should be no need to install them on the host. So request_firmware() does not seem suitable. I believe the ethtool EEPROM commands were meant for updating firmware on NICs. Although they assume random access and so are unsuitable for flash-based firmware, they might be a better model for adding flash update commands. However, this command set is already available through the MTD device class, which is what we use for firmware update as far as possible. Not only does this allow for an arbitrary number of separate firmware partitions per network device, but it can be used in an out-of-tree driver for older kernel versions. Ben. -- Ben Hutchings, Senior Software Engineer, Solarflare Communications Not speaking for my employer; that's the marketing department's job. They asked us to note that Solarflare product names are trademarked.