Re: Switching kernel drivers to userland microcode loading, and 'contrib'
Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote:
> On Sat, 10 Apr 2004, Nathanael Nerode wrote:
>> So I started looking into switching various kernel drivers to userland
>> firmware loading. In many cases, it seems straightforward, apart from
>> one issue: what if the firmware loading fails?
>
> IMHO:
>
> Add an "unavailable" state for every device, and start in it.
Any idea how to do that? That's beyond my kernel hacking skills. :-)
> If the
> firmware upload happens without problems, set it to available. On failure,
> reset the device and let it remain unavailable (if it can recover from a
> failed firmware upload) or lock it unavailable forever (if it can't
> recover).
>
> Chances are that if a firmware is being distributed inside the kernel
> drivers, anyone with a device that has older firmware is better off with
> the
> device unavailable. Who knows what bugs the firmware update fixed, and
> what kind of damage running the kernel driver with older firmware could
> cause?
>
> So, IMHO, all firmware-upload-on-device-powerup devices are contrib/
> material.
>
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