Messages in this thread | | | Subject | Re: [RFC][PATCH 1/2] firmware version management: add firmware_version() | From | Marcel Holtmann <> | Date | Sat, 08 Jul 2006 15:49:57 +0200 |
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Hi Arjan,
> > It would be good if a driver knows which firmware version will be > > written to the hardware. I'm talking about external firmware files > > claimed by request_firmware(). > > > > We know so many different firmware files for bcm43xx and it becomes > > more and more complicated without some firmware version management. > > > > This patch can create the md5sum of a firmware file. Then it looks into > > a table to figure out which version number is assigned to the hashcode. > > That table is placed in the driver code and an example for bcm43xx comes > > in my next mail. Any comments? > > why does this have to happen on the kernel side? Isn't it a lot easier > and better to let the userspace side of things do this work, and even > have a userspace file with the md5->version mapping? Or are there some > practical considerations that make that hard to impossible?
I fully agree that we shouldn't put firmware versioning into the kernel drivers. The pattern you give to request_firmware() can be mapped to any file on the file system. And you also have the link to the device object and I prefer you export a sysfs file for the version so that the helper application loading the firmware can pick the right file.
Regards
Marcel
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