(Adding a few more Realtek folks) Friendly ping. Any thoughts / feedback, Realtek folks (and others) ?
On Thu, Aug 29, 2019 at 11:40 AM Prashant Malani <pmal...@chromium.org> wrote: > > Hi, > > The r8152 driver source code distributed by Realtek (on > www.realtek.com) contains firmware patches. This involves binary > byte-arrays being written byte/word-wise to the hardware memory > Example: grund...@chromium.org (cc-ed) has an experimental patch which > includes the firmware patching code which was distributed with the > Realtek source : > https://chromium-review.googlesource.com/c/chromiumos/third_party/kernel/+/1417953 > > It would be nice to have a way to incorporate these firmware fixes > into the upstream code. Since having indecipherable byte-arrays is not > possible upstream, I propose the following: > - We use the assistance of Realtek to come up with a format which the > firmware patch files can follow (this can be documented in the > comments). > - A real simple format could look like this: > + > <section1><size_in_bytes><address1><data1><address2><data2>...<addressN><dataN><section2>... > + The driver would be able to understand how to parse > each section (e.g is each data entry a byte or a word?) > > - We use request_firmware() to load the firmware, parse it and write > the data to the relevant registers. > > I'm unfamiliar with what the preferred method of firmware patching is, > so I hope the maintainers can help suggest the best path forward. > > As an aside: It would be great if Realtek could publish a list of > fixes that the firmware patches implement (I think a list on the > driver download page on the Realtek website would be an excellent > starting point). > > Thanks and Best regards, > > -Prashant
