From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S261393AbTDQN6U (ORCPT ); Thu, 17 Apr 2003 09:58:20 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S261404AbTDQN6T (ORCPT ); Thu, 17 Apr 2003 09:58:19 -0400 Received: from pc2-cwma1-4-cust86.swan.cable.ntl.com ([213.105.254.86]:31686 "EHLO lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S261393AbTDQN6T (ORCPT ); Thu, 17 Apr 2003 09:58:19 -0400 Subject: Re: firmware separation filesystem (fwfs) From: Alan Cox To: David Gibson Cc: ranty@debian.org, Linux Kernel Mailing List In-Reply-To: <20030417012321.GB9219@zax> References: <20030416163641.GA2183@ranty.ddts.net> <1050508028.28586.126.camel@dhcp22.swansea.linux.org.uk> <20030417012321.GB9219@zax> Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Organization: Message-Id: <1050585122.31390.25.camel@dhcp22.swansea.linux.org.uk> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Ximian Evolution 1.2.2 (1.2.2-5) Date: 17 Apr 2003 14:12:03 +0100 Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Iau, 2003-04-17 at 02:23, David Gibson wrote: > > But so would loading it from hotplug via ioctl. It might be we want > > a clean hotplug way to ask for 'firmare for xyz'. > > True, but ioctl()s are horrid. And the driver needs to set up a > suitable device to which the ioctl() is applied, and deal with binding > the right image to the right instance, which can get messy in some You are ignoring the main issue of discussion. I don't care if its ioctl, tcp/ip over carrier pigeon or a pipe. fwfs is a broken idea because it leaves the data in kernel space. On a giant IBM monster maybe nobody cares about a few hundred K of cached firmware in the kernel, but the rest of us happen to run real world computers. Catting the firmware to a device node also works fine for me as an API, but keep the firmware in userspace. Alan