Marc Gonzalez <mgonzalez@xxxxxxxxxx> writes: > On 04/04/2024 13:57, Kalle Valo wrote: > >> Dmitry Baryshkov wrote: >> >>> I'd say, we should take a step back and actually verify how this was >>> handled in the vendor kernel. >> >> One comment related to this: usually vendor driver and firmware branches >> go "hand in hand", meaning that a version of driver supports only one >> specific firmware branch. And there can be a lot of branches. So even if >> one branch might have a check for something specific, there are no >> guarantees what the other N+1 branches do :/ > > The consequences and ramifications of the above comment are not clear to me. > > Does this mean: > "It is pointless to analyze a given version (or even several versions) > of the vendor driver downstream, because there are exist a large number > of variations of the code." ? I was trying to say that because the design philosophy between vendor drivers and upstream drivers is very different, we can't 100% trust vendor drivers. It's a very good idea to check what vendor drivers do but we just need to be careful before making any conclusions. Testing real hardware (and corresponding firmware) is the most reliable way to know how different products/firmware work, unfortunately. > And thus, "it is nonsensical to try to "align" the mainline driver to > "the" vendor driver, as there is no single "vendor driver"" ? No no, I'm not saying that. I have suffered this "N+1 different firmware branches behaving slighly differently" problem since ath6kl days so for me this is business as usual, sadly. I'm sure we can find a solution for ath10k. -- https://patchwork.kernel.org/project/linux-wireless/list/ https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/developers/documentation/submittingpatches
