Re: Rejuvenated kernel-package uploaded to unstable, please test
On Tue, 14 Oct 2008, Felipe Sateler wrote:
> Please hit me with the cluebat; apparently I'm not understanding anything. Why
> would I want to have more than one firmware installed? AIUI, the firmware is
The firmware has an ABI to the kernel driver. If it changes, both have to
change. This has happened with, e.g., ipw2200 (which has out-of-tree
firmware).
I have no idea if this ever happened to one of the drivers with in-tree
firmware. But it is a very rare event, that much I have to agree with the
people who made this mess.
> interface in a backwards-incompatible manner. And I guess the kernel should
> ignore hardware features the firmware doesn't support. The worst case scenario
That's not how it works. The way it works is that it can easily blow up in
flames if it uses the wrong version of the firmware by mistake. Or (FAR
more likely) it just doesn't enable the device at all because it cannot find
the correct version of the firmware it wants (if everyone did their job
right and changed the firmware name when they changed the firmware).
--
"One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring
them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond
where the shadows lie." -- The Silicon Valley Tarot
Henrique Holschuh
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