linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] ALSA: hda - Defer probe when loading patch firmware

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Message-ID: <20120809073642.GA24695@avionic-0098.mockup.avionic-design.de>
Date:	Thu, 9 Aug 2012 09:36:42 +0200
From:	Thierry Reding <thierry.reding@...onic-design.de>
To:	Takashi Iwai <tiwai@...e.de>
Cc:	Jaroslav Kysela <perex@...ex.cz>,
	David Henningsson <david.henningsson@...onical.com>,
	alsa-devel@...a-project.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH] ALSA: hda - Defer probe when loading patch firmware

On Thu, Aug 09, 2012 at 09:31:30AM +0200, Takashi Iwai wrote:
> At Thu, 9 Aug 2012 09:08:13 +0200,
> Thierry Reding wrote:
> > 
> > On Thu, Aug 09, 2012 at 08:57:13AM +0200, Takashi Iwai wrote:
> > > At Thu,  9 Aug 2012 08:45:23 +0200,
> > > Thierry Reding wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > Recent changes to the firmware loading helpers cause drivers to stall
> > > > when firmware is loaded during the module_init() call. The snd-hda-intel
> > > > module requests firmware if the patch= parameter is used to load a patch
> > > > file. This patch works around the problem by deferring the probe in such
> > > > cases, which will cause the module to load successfully and the driver
> > > > binding to the device outside the module_init() call.
> > > 
> > > Is the "recent" change meant 3.6 kernel, or in linux-next?
> > > 
> > > In anyway, I don't understand why such a change was allowed.  Most
> > > drivers do call request_firmware() at the device probing time.
> > > If this really has to be resolved in the driver side, it must be a bug
> > > in the firmware loader core code.
> > 
> > A good explanation of the problem and subsequent discussion can be found
> > here:
> > 
> > 	http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.drivers.video-input-infrastructure/49975
> 
> Yeah, but it doesn't justify this ugly module option.
> It's a simple bug.  Papering over it with this option doesn't fix
> anything.

It's not an option, all it does is defer probing if and only if the
patch parameter was specified to make sure the firmware load won't
stall. I realize that this may not be an optimal solution, but at least
it fixes the problem with no fallout.

A proper fix would require a larger rewrite because it would entail
using the asynchronous firmware load operations. That in turn would
require the initialization to be split into several stages.

Thierry

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