linux-kernel - Re: tristate and bool not enogh for Kconfig anymore

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Date:	Mon, 22 Oct 2007 17:27:51 +0600
From:	"Alexander E. Patrakov" <patrakov@....usu.ru>
To:	Christoph Hellwig <hch@...radead.org>
Cc:	Henrik Carlqvist <hc1@...lhem.se>, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: tristate and bool not enogh for Kconfig anymore

Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 22, 2007 at 04:32:19PM +0600, Alexander E. Patrakov wrote:
>   
>>> That's wrong.   You can load firmware from the initramfs even if the
>>> driver is built in.  There is no valid reason why a driver shouldn't
>>> be allowed to be built in.
>>>       
>> Could you please explain how this is supposed to work?
>>
>> As far as I understand, the kernel initializes all built-in drivers, and 
>> only then starts /init in initramfs (which is then supposed to start 
>> udevd and load firmware) - but that's too late.
>>     
>
> populate_rootfs is a rootfs_initcall which happens before all the driver
> initcalls.
>   

Correct, but irrelevant. The firmware indeed gets unpacked to rootfs 
before all driver initcalls, but stays as a dead weight during them, 
because udev (started by /init, which happens in init_post() called by 
kernel_init() after all initcalls) is needed to load this firmware.

Yes, there is a call to usermodehelper_init() before the initcalls in 
do_basic_setup(), this does mean that firmware can be loaded by means of 
the old and obsolete /sbin/hotplug mechanism, but who has /sbin/hotplug now?

-- 
Alexander E. Patrakov
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