Re: [GIT *] Allow request_firmware() to be satisfied from in-kernel,use it in more drivers.

From: Rene Herman
Date: Tue Jul 15 2008 - 01:31:32 EST


On 15-07-08 06:56, Arjan van de Ven wrote:

On Mon, 14 Jul 2008 19:45:57 -0700 (PDT)
David Miller <davem@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2008 19:39:03 -0700 (PDT)

Put this way: if you do a distro, you _need_ to support firmware
loading anyway. And once you do that, it's just annoying how some
drivers then do something odd and special for the same thing, for
no real good reason.
In what way is it annoying?

Most distribution people aren't even aware that drivers like tg3 and
bnx2 even have firmware. In fact it's self contained and less for
them to worry about.

and.. after this patch that still seems to be the case, unless I'm
looking at it really cross eyed.
Nothing in this patch makes it impossible to do so.. or changes the
drivers you mention. in fact it's the opposite almost: it improves
request_firmware() usability significantly. (by allowing vmlinux build
in etc).

Only by virtue of those specific drivers having been skipped for now. For those that weren't skipped, the only way to have them still be self contained is to have the kernel itself compile in all firmware for all modules after which the module will find it there. Distributions will of course not do this, not does it make any sense for own kernels.

Rene.
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