Messages in this thread | | | Date | Sun, 15 Oct 2000 22:38:54 -0700 (PDT) | From | Andre Hedrick <> | Subject | Re: Device Driver |
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On Mon, 16 Oct 2000, Keith Owens wrote:
> On Sun, 15 Oct 2000 09:57:08 -0700, > Miles Lane <miles@speakeasy.org> wrote: > >> On Mon, 16 Oct 2000 14:30:39 +1000, > >> "Mike McLeod" <michaelm@platypustechnology.com> wrote: > >> >All of the code is open except for an image file that is loaded > >> >onto the card when the driver is installed that handles it's > >> >logic. From here, how do we begin the process of getting our > >> >drivers included into the kernel? > > > >I presume your driver doesn't mind if this image is unavailable. > >If not, you'll need to provide a open source image to use in place > >of your proprietary one. > > Linus, please confirm. > > Firmware for cards can be proprietary. It can either be installed by a > userspace utility on startup (nothing to do with the kernel) or it can > be installed by the kernel driver for the card during initialization. > In the latter case, the image must be supplied in text format and > converted to binary, no binary files in the kernel tarball.
Nobody asked but, HDD solid state devices that could be used for booting would require the linking or inclusion of of non-open binaries that must be executed once the release of INT13/INT19 are completed from the bios bootstrapping. We are looking at something that has to be kick started long before execve("/sbin/init"...);system("/sbin/init"); could be considered.
Regardless if this is ATA/SCSI.....
Just my thoughs....dump them if you wish...
Andre Hedrick The Linux ATA/IDE guy
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