[PATCH/RFC 0/2] Zorro modalias support

[Geert Uytterhoeven <geert@linux-m68k.org>]

The following 2 patches add Zorro bus module device table and modalias support
to the kernel and module-init-tools.

 1. The kernel patch adds
      - module aliases to loadable driver modules, based on the Zorro device
        tables in the drivers,
      - a `modalias' attribute to Zorro devices in sysfs.

    E.g. for the A2065, the following aliases are automatically created:

    | anakin$ modinfo drivers/net/a2065.ko 
    | filename:       drivers/net/a2065.ko
    | license:        GPL
    | vermagic:       2.6.22-rc4-m68k-amiga-g845a2fdc-dirty mod_unload 
    | depends:        
    | alias:          zorro:i02025A00*
    | alias:          zorro:i02027000*
    | alias:          zorro:i041D0100*
    | anakin$ 

    This allows udev to automatically load Zorro drivers.

 2. The module-init-tools patch adds a `modules.zorromap' file to
    /lib/modules/<kernel-version>/.

    I'm not so sure who will use that file, but it exists for other
    probable bus types.

Unfortunately everything doesn't seem to work very well...

I've just upgraded my poor old A4000 (which had been in in storage for 2.5
years) from Debian woody to sarge, but hotplug and udev break havoc on it:
  - The presence of hotplug causes an out-of-memory during boot-up (only
    12 MiB of Fast RAM), even before you have the chance to fix anything when
    booting with `-b'.
    Fortunately 2.4.27 still booted, so I could remove the hotplug
    binary
  - The presence of udev causes another stall later in the boot process,
    with the disk rattling like mad. Magic SysRequest didn't seem to
    work (side-effect of reverting to the good old Amiga keymaps?), so I
    have not much data to share.

In etch, hotplug and udev seem to be united in a newer version of udev,
which also provides a `udevtrigger' command (I used that with great
success when adding modalias support for the PS3). So I was wondering
how the upgrade path for m68k goes beyond sarge now? Shall I upgrade to
lenny? Or to etch-m68k (wherever it may be, definitely not yet in my
sources.list...)?

If this starts to work fine, probably we should add modalias support for
NuBus, too...

I've also been thinking about adding a special `amiga' bus type that
contains all built-in devices (but you can substitute `amiga' by `atari'
or `mac', the idea stays the same). E.g. based on amiga_hw_present we
could create a list of devices. With proper modalias support they could
be auto-loaded by udev, without the need for hackery in /etc/modules or
/etc/modules.conf.

What do you think?

It's getting a long email, time to follow-up with the actual patches...

Gr{oetje,eeting}s,

						Geert

--
Geert Uytterhoeven -- There's lots of Linux beyond ia32 -- geert@linux-m68k.org

In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But
when I'm talking to journalists I just say "programmer" or something like that.
							    -- Linus Torvalds


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