From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Dhananjay Phadke Subject: Re: [PATCH NEXT 12/12] netxen: update version to 4.0.41 Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2009 14:51:28 -0700 Message-ID: <4A6E2160.1090704@qlogic.com> References: <20090727.103842.52201957.davem@davemloft.net> <20090727.105403.202219074.davem@davemloft.net> <7608421F3572AB4292BB2532AE89D56581877E22A4@AVEXMB1.qlogic.org> <20090727.123807.268367807.davem@davemloft.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: "netdev@vger.kernel.org" To: David Miller Return-path: Received: from avexch1.qlogic.com ([198.70.193.115]:50188 "EHLO avexch1.qlogic.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1753612AbZG0Vv2 (ORCPT ); Mon, 27 Jul 2009 17:51:28 -0400 In-Reply-To: <20090727.123807.268367807.davem@davemloft.net> Sender: netdev-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: Agreed that it duplicates work in individual drivers, and the naming style followed by different vendors. But the problem is ethtool can work only after driver has successfully initialized interfaces. Otherwise, ethtool gets no chance to tune up/down. The driver defaults are for tuned for typical use cases. On some frugal systems with lower amount of RAM, the driver bails out failing to allocate enough ring space or rx buffers [especially for 32-bit kernels]. This is also a problem for multi-function (more than one PCI function per physical port) mode, where number of interfaces and hence the memory consumption gets multiplied. For these cases something that can set the bar before device initialization, is quite helpful. Thanks, Dhananjay David Miller wrote: > No, it is not good. > > With module parameters we: > > 1) duplicate functionality > > 2) every device driver will name the module parms differently, > therefore the interface for the user is different for every device > type > > We discuss this all the time, and this is a pretty deep rooted > belief and requirement for all network drivers.