Messages in this thread | | | Subject | Re: [RFC] binary firmware and modules | From | Marcel Holtmann <> | Date | Tue, 18 Apr 2006 17:41:18 +0200 |
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Hi Duncan,
> > we have two kind of devices that need firmware download. The easy and > > clean ones which need one or two files and these basically change not > > that often. In most cases these are the network or storage devices and > > for exactly these we need the MODULE_FIRMWARE() support to know which > > files have to be put into initrd. > > > The messed up devices like the Speedtouch and maybe even some WiFi > > dongles are another story. > > I don't know why you consider the speedtouch to be messed up. What's > messed up is not the modems themselves, but the fact that we don't know > what modems exist, and how they differ in their firmware requirements.
if you don't know the firmware requirements, then this is what I call messed up. I now that this is basically the fault of the manufacturer or missing specifications, but wild guessing on the firmware doesn't really help. A kernel driver should know which firmware it needs.
> Anyway, speedtouch users also need their firmware to end up in any initrd. > Since the driver expects all firmware files to start with "speedtch", > the MODULE_FIRMWARE scheme would work for the speedtouch driver too as > long as it allows the driver to specify just the initial part of a file > name. You could go all the way to regular expressions, but that seems > a bit ridiculous.
I personally prefer full firmware names. This makes the dependency easy and even an end user can call modinfo and see what firmware is expected by a certain driver (without looking at the source code).
Regards
Marcel
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