Re: [ANNOUNCE] QLogic qla2xxx driver update available (v8.00.00b6).

[Christoph Hellwig <hch@infradead.org>]

On Thu, Nov 06, 2003 at 05:53:06PM +0000, Matthew Wilcox wrote:
> > 
> > 	o Build process -- (three module interface for the ISPs), I
> > 	  personally like the idea of a shared library module used
> > 	  between the different ISP drivers.  Many others have voiced
> > 	  their frustrations with the single driver-binary for each
> > 	  ISP type that the directive from management is to have a
> > 	  single binary for all *future* products including the 
> > 	  ISP23xx (ISP2300/ISP2310/ISP2312/ISP2322) chips.
> > 
> > 	  That unfortunately leaves ISP2100 and ISP2200 on the
> > 	  periphery of development efforts.
> 
> I wouldn't see a problem with having a structure like this:
> 
> ql2100.c
> ql2200.c
> ql23xx.c
> qllib.c
> 
> and linking in whichever files are selected.  But you definitely only want
> to build qllib.c once.

Well, if you look at the driver you'll need all files except the firmware
anyway.  And now that we have the request_firmware interface anyway I'd
bebetter to move that out of the module, at least once initramfs settles down
a bit.

The issue is more lots of tiny ifdefs - those in the C source could be easily
hidden using pdev->device comparisms (and I think I'm gonna submit a patch
for that soon, the driver already does that for ISP23XX variants without
a proper abstraction).  Those in the headers are a bit more difficult as the
register layout is a bit different sometimes.  But with doing these as unions
instead of ifdefs and splitted subroutines this should be managæble as well,
the feral driver already does this nicely.

-- 
Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>		-	Freelance Hacker
Contact me for driver hacking and kernel development consulting