On Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 3:08 PM, Marcel Holtmann <marcel@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Hi Luis, > >> > This converts ar9170 to load firmware asynchronously >> > out of ->probe() and only register with mac80211 when >> > all firmware has been loaded successfully. If, on the >> > other hand, any firmware fails to load, it will now >> > unbind from the device. >> > >> > Signed-off-by: Johannes Berg <johannes@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> >> > --- >> > This can go in now, the prereq patch went in via gregkh. >> > >> > This ought to make it possible to build the driver >> > into the kernel and as long as your system boots >> > within 60 seconds it'll all just work. >> > >> > This is how we need to load firmware for drivers that >> > require the firmware image to detect which features >> > to register to mac80211/cfg80211, but it's also useful >> > when no features depend on the firmware. >> > >> > I've done ar9170 because I'm somewhat familiar with its >> > implementation. b43 should probably be converted to this >> > scheme since it actually has features that depend on the >> > firmware, and libertas_tf has the MAC addresss depending >> > on the firmware (well it needs the firmware to read it). >> > >> > The only complication with this is that now the user is >> > mostly unaware they have a wireless device, they can only >> > find it via lsusb/lspci etc. if firmware loading fails, >> > or from kernel messages. And also manual binding in sysfs, >> > device re-plugging or module re-loading is required to >> > get the module to find the device after putting firmware >> > in place... >> > >> > Still I think this is better than what we have now with >> > many drivers -- if firmware is missing you get network >> > interfaces etc. but cannot ever use them, and it's not >> > always entirely clear that is due to missing firmware. >> >> Sweet -- we could also expose firmware load events if not done so >> already and let userspace propagate such nasty warnings, I think we'd >> need to pass the firmware expected and the driver the requested it so >> that once the firmware is in place (I guess through inotify maybe) the >> driver modprobe can be retried. > > actually PackageKit should be doing something like this already. It > might need to be adapted a bit, but the basics should be there. Wow, I'm impressed. Thanks for the heads up. Luis -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-wireless" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
