On Mon, Jul 6, 2020 at 4:45 PM Geert Uytterhoeven <geert@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 6, 2020 at 4:37 PM Arnd Bergmann <arnd@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > On Fri, Jul 3, 2020 at 2:07 PM Geert Uytterhoeven
> > <geert+renesas@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > ----------------------------------------------------------------
> > > Renesas ARM defconfig updates for v5.9
> > >
> > > - Refresh shmobile_defconfig for v5.8-rc1
> > > - Enable additional support for Renesas platforms to
> > > shmobile_defconfig, multi_v7_defconfig, and the arm64 defconfig.
> >
> > As you write on one of the commits
> >
> > "All of the above are modular, except for Ethernet support (HDMI Audio
> > support is an optional feature of the modular ADV7511 driver)."
> >
> > I'm starting to see some demand for making more drivers loadable modules
> > that are traditionally built-in. Can you give a more specific reason why
> > this one (and I guess CONFIG_RAVB next to it) should not a loadable module?
>
> We tend to make Ethernet built-in, to ease testing using nfsroot.
> If that is no longer desirable, I guess we'll have to improve our initramfs
> skills ;-)
I'm not sure either. My feeling is that we should probably make all network
support loadable modules eventually, it seems wrong to single out yours
if your current workflow depends on the built-in driver today.
I'm pulling your branch for now, but I'll keep asking around what others
think, and we might change all drivers that can to be loadable
modules later on.
In particular, a number of chips that primarily run Android are now
changed so they can have even more fundamental drivers (pinctrl,
clk, ...) as loadable modules, and it seems like a good idea to
also support that in the defconfig.
Arnd
