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Message-Id: <20080708.015838.245133409.davem@davemloft.net>
Date: Tue, 08 Jul 2008 01:58:38 -0700 (PDT)
From: David Miller <davem@...emloft.net>
To: alan@...rguk.ukuu.org.uk
Cc: mchan@...adcom.com, dwmw2@...radead.org, bastian@...di.eu.org,
linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH] bnx2 - use request_firmware()
From: Alan Cox <alan@...rguk.ukuu.org.uk>
Date: Tue, 8 Jul 2008 07:39:22 +0100
> > The firmware needs to be reloaded every time the chip resets.
> > You're not saving anything/
>
> > See above, you aren't saving anything. The firmware needs to stay
> > around so it can be reloaded into the card during exceptions.
> >
> > That is, unless you want a more failure prone system.
>
> Ok so if tg3 always needs the same firmware and always needs it in memory
> then maybe it isn't a significant candidate for request_firmware beyond
> the neatness of distribution. I note the firmware hasn't changed in years
> so it can easily be shipped separately and the one package would have
> done for all this time.
It isn't just tg3. All the broadcom gigabit chips need this
kind of handling.
Basically all of the drivers we are pushing back on.
I bet there are other similar examples.
> > > Driver authors aren't God.
> >
> > They (actually, more specifically the maintainers) to a certain extent
> > are, because they are the ones who eat doo-doo when something explodes.
>
> So do the distributions and the users.
Not really. The dist folks and users hit a problem, and it rolls
downhill quickly, and more often than not it plops right on the head
of the driver maintainer.
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