linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] CCISS: Don't print driver version until we actually find a device

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Date:	Thu, 27 Jul 2006 13:28:25 +0000
From:	"gmu 2k6" <gmu2006@...il.com>
To:	"Dmitry Torokhov" <dmitry.torokhov@...il.com>
Cc:	"Jeff Garzik" <jeff@...zik.org>,
	"Arjan van de Ven" <arjan@...radead.org>,
	"Jesper Juhl" <jesper.juhl@...il.com>,
	"Bjorn Helgaas" <bjorn.helgaas@...com>,
	"Andrew Morton" <akpm@...l.org>,
	"Mike Miller" <mike.miller@...com>, iss_storagedev@...com,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH] CCISS: Don't print driver version until we actually find a device

On 7/27/06, Dmitry Torokhov <dmitry.torokhov@...il.com> wrote:
> On 7/26/06, Jeff Garzik <jeff@...zik.org> wrote:
> > Arjan van de Ven wrote:
> > > On Wed, 2006-07-26 at 00:43 +0200, Jesper Juhl wrote:
> > >> On 26/07/06, Bjorn Helgaas <bjorn.helgaas@...com> wrote:
> > >>> If we don't find any devices, we shouldn't print anything.
> > >>>
> > >> I disagree.
> > >> I find it quite nice to be able to see that the driver loaded even if
> > >> it finds nothing. At least then when there's a problem, I can quickly
> > >> see that at least it is not because I didn't forget to load the
> > >> driver, it's something else. Saves time since I can start looking for
> > >> reasons why the driver didn't find anything without first spending
> > >> additional time checking if I failed to cause it to load for some
> > >> reason.
> > >
> > > I'll add a second reason: it is a REALLY nice property to be able to see
> > > which driver is started last in case of a crash/hang, so that the guilty
> > > party is more obvious..
> >
> > OTOH, it is not a property that scales well at all.
> >
> > When you build extra drivers into the kernel, or distros load drivers
> > you don't need (_every_ distro does this), you wind up with a bunch of
> > version strings for drivers for hardware you don't have.
> >
>
> Given that boot tracing is best done with initcall_debug and
> drivers that care about their version string can report it through
> /sys/modules/<driver>/version why should version string be printed at
> load time at all?

not every driver provides that file (btw, I guess you mean
/sys/module, don't you?) there anyway so it's still inconsistent.
what if you can see up until loading of the driver and it halts there
without /sys being mounted yet. I don't think you can rely on sysfs
being mounted or modules being loaded.
if I may vote as a CCISS user I say print the version number even if
no device is present.
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