Hi Pali,
>>>> On Saturday 06 December 2014 13:49:54 Pavel Machek wrote:
>>>> /**
>>>>
>>>> + * request_firmware_prefer_user: - prefer usermode helper
>>>> for loading firmware + * @firmware_p: pointer to firmware
>>>> image
>>>> + * @name: name of firmware file
>>>> + * @device: device for which firmware is being loaded
>>>> + *
>>>> + * This function works pretty much like
>>>> request_firmware(), but it prefer + * usermode helper. If
>>>> usermode helper fails then it fallback to direct access.
>>>> + * Usefull for dynamic or model specific firmware data.
>>>> + **/
>>>> +int request_firmware_prefer_user(const struct firmware
>>>> **firmware_p, + const char
>>>> *name, struct device *device) +{
>>>> + int ret;
>>>> + __module_get(THIS_MODULE);
>>>> + ret = _request_firmware(firmware_p, name, device,
>>>> + FW_OPT_UEVENT |
>>>> FW_OPT_PREFER_USER); + module_put(THIS_MODULE);
>>>> + return ret;
>>>> +}
>>>> +EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(request_firmware_prefer_user);
>>>
>>> I'd like to introduce request_firmware_user() which only
>>> requests firmware from user space, and this way is simpler
>>> and more flexible since we have request_firmware_direct()
>>> already.
>>
>> Why would a driver care about what program provides the
>> firmware? It shouldn't at all, and we want to get rid of the
>> userspace firmware loader, not encourage drivers to use it
>> "exclusively" at all.
>>
>
> Do not remove it! Without userspace firmware loader it is
> impossible to load dynamic firmware files.
why is this dynamic in the first place. It does not sound like dynamic data to
me at all. This is like the WiFi MAC address(es) or Bluetooth BD_ADDR. They are
all static information. The only difference is that they are on the host
accessibly filesystem or storage and not on the device itself.
To be honest, for Bluetooth we solved this now. If the device is missing key
information like the calibration data or BD_ADDR, then it comes up
unconfigured. A userspace process can then go and load the right data into it
and then the device becomes available as Bluetooth device.
Trying to use request_firmware to load some random data and insist on going
through userspace helper for that sounds crazy to me. Especially since we are
trying hard to get away from the userspace loader. Forcing to keep it for new
stuff sounds backwards to me.
With the special Nokia partition in mind, why hasn't this been turned into a
mountable filesystem or into a driver/subsystem that can access the data direct
from the kernel. I advocated for this some time ago. Maybe there should be a
special subsystem for access to these factory persistent information that
drivers then just can access. I seem to remember that some systems provide
these via ACPI. Why does the ARM platform has to be special here?
And the problem of getting Ethernet and WiFi MAC address and Bluetooth BD_ADDR
comes up many many times. Why not have something generic here. And don't tell
me request_firmware is that generic solution ;)
Regards
Marcel
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majord...@vger.kernel.org
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
