From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Denys Vlasenko Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/2] bnx2: factor out gzip unpacker Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2007 20:18:06 +0100 Message-ID: <200709212018.06553.vda.linux@googlemail.com> References: <200709211201.24475.vda.linux@googlemail.com> <200709211905.23946.vda.linux@googlemail.com> <15775.1190399812@turing-police.cc.vt.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-15" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: David Miller , jeff@garzik.org, mchan@broadcom.com, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, netdev@vger.kernel.org To: Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu Return-path: Received: from ug-out-1314.google.com ([66.249.92.172]:54865 "EHLO ug-out-1314.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752243AbXIUTSN (ORCPT ); Fri, 21 Sep 2007 15:18:13 -0400 Received: by ug-out-1314.google.com with SMTP id z38so575223ugc for ; Fri, 21 Sep 2007 12:18:12 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <15775.1190399812@turing-police.cc.vt.edu> Content-Disposition: inline Sender: netdev-owner@vger.kernel.org List-Id: netdev.vger.kernel.org On Friday 21 September 2007 19:36, Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu wrote: > On Fri, 21 Sep 2007 19:05:23 BST, Denys Vlasenko said: > > > I plan to use gzip compression on following drivers' firmware, > > if patches will be accepted: > > > > text data bss dec hex filename > > 17653 109968 240 127861 1f375 drivers/net/acenic.o > > 6628 120448 4 127080 1f068 drivers/net/dgrs.o > > ^^^^^^ > > Should this be redone to use the existing firmware loading framework to > load the firmware instead? Not in every case. For example, bnx2 maintainer says that driver and firmware are closely tied for his driver. IOW: you upgrade kernel and your NIC is not working anymore. Another argument is to make kernel be able to bring up NICs without needing firmware images in initramfs/initrd/hard drive. -- vda