On Sat, Jan 14, 2012 at 22:13, Larry Finger <Larry.Finger@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On 01/14/2012 01:59 PM, Arend van Spriel wrote: >> >> On 01/14/2012 07:20 PM, Larry Finger wrote: >>> >>> On 01/14/2012 11:58 AM, John W. Linville wrote: >>>> >>>> Kay, thanks for the reports. Drivers should definitely be loading >>>> firmware at IFF_UP time. >>> >>> >>> As the maintainer for several drivers with this problem, I need to make >>> some >>> changes. What call from mac80211 corresponds to IFF_UP? >> >> >> Hi, Larry >> >> The mac80211 start callback describes following: >> >> * @start: Called before the first netdevice attached to the hardware >> * is enabled. This should turn on the hardware and must turn on >> * frame reception (for possibly enabled monitor interfaces.) >> * Returns negative error codes, these may be seen in userspace, >> * or zero. >> * When the device is started it should not have a MAC address >> * to avoid acknowledging frames before a non-monitor device >> * is added. >> * Must be implemented and can sleep. >> >> Seems to me a good place to do the firmware loading although it is not >> really IFF_UP. >> >>> I have looked into using asynchronous firmware loading, but I have not >>> yet found >>> a good implementation. >>> >>> Larry >> >> >> In brcmsmac we request the firmware in the probe function so not in >> module_init, but I guess upon driver registration in the module_init the >> probe is called. > > I looked once at the pci_register_driver, and if I remember well, the probe in called in the same context of pci_register_driver. The driver registration fires a bus enumeration. FWIW, drivers might need to fetch their fw before registering mac80211. This can happen if they need their fw to know their capabilities... > > The rtlwifi drivers also load the firmware in the probe function, but do so > synchronously, which is where they get in trouble with the new udev. > > I'm planning on converting to asynchronous firmware loading with a check in > the start routine. > so does iwlwifi -- 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
