Steve McIntyre <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Bruce Perens wrote: >> >>A good hardware design would put this code in FLASH on the board. > > Depends on what you mean by a "good hardware design". For example, a > lot of the USB dongles becoming common would be significantly bigger > and/or more expensive if they had to have sufficient space on-board > for a complete firmware implementation. As cost and size can be > _everything_ on these devices, downloading firmware each time they are > started/connected can actually be a good design choice.
Is a bit of flash or rom that much bigger than ram? Isn't most of the space in the dongle air or filling material? Cost I can see, size I find a bit hard to believe. >>If you don't have a good hardware design, BLOBs belong in files, not >>the driver. The 2.6 kernel boots up with at least initramfs >>accessable to it, and later initrd, if it needs a BLOB it should load >>it from there. > > Agreed on this bit. > > -- > Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK. [EMAIL > PROTECTED] > You raise the blade, you make the change... You re-arrange me 'til I'm sane... MfG Goswin