On 20 January 2017 at 13:51, Kalle Valo <kvalo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Michal Kazior <michal.kazior@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: >> Firmware files are versioned to prevent older >> driver instances to load unsupported firmware >> blobs. This is reflected with a fallback logic >> which attempts to load several firmware files. >> >> This however produced a lot of unnecessary >> warnings sometimes confusing users and leading >> them to rename firmware files making things even >> more confusing. >> >> Hence use request_firmware_direct() which does not >> produce extra warnings. This shouldn't really >> break anything because most modern systems don't >> rely on udev/hotplug helpers to load firmware >> files anymore. >> >> Signed-off-by: Michal Kazior <michal.kazior@xxxxxxxxx> > > This ended into a rather long discussion, see the full thread from the patchwork link > below, but I'll try to summarise it here: > > * Nobody stepped up and mentioned that they need/use the user fallback helper with ath10k. > > * Felix confirmed that LEDE creates the calibration file before loading ath10k > so this should not break LEDE. > > * This also fixes a 60 second delay per _each_ unexistent firmware/calibration > file with distros which have CONFIG_FW_LOADER_USER_HELPER_FALLBACK enabled, > RHEL being a notable example. Using ath10k with firmware-2.bin this might > end up into a five minute delay in boot. > > * Luis is working on new drvdata interface for kernel, but that's not merged yet. > > Based on this I think the right approach is to apply this patch. Any concerns? > > While writing this I started to suspect is it just by accident that > request_firmware_direct() does not print any error messages and > request_firmware() again does print those? Let's hope nobody decides to change > that. And at least Luis' drvdata interface has a documented 'optional' flag, > so we can always switch to using that (once it's merged): > > * struct drvdata_req_params - driver data request parameters > * @optional: if true it is not a hard requirement by the caller that this > * file be present. An error will not be recorded if the file is not > * found. > > Michal, do you mind if I'll add more info to the commit log and submit this RFC > as a proper patch? It still seems to apply and work just fine. I don't mind :) Michał
