On Friday 21 September 2007 20:33, Krzysztof Oledzki wrote: > > On Fri, 21 Sep 2007, Denys Vlasenko wrote: > > > On Friday 21 September 2007 19:36, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > >> On Fri, 21 Sep 2007 19:05:23 BST, Denys Vlasenko said: > >> > >>> I plan to use gzip compression on following drivers' firmware, > >>> if patches will be accepted: > >>> > >>> text data bss dec hex filename > >>> 17653 109968 240 127861 1f375 drivers/net/acenic.o > >>> 6628 120448 4 127080 1f068 drivers/net/dgrs.o > >>> ^^^^^^ > >> > >> Should this be redone to use the existing firmware loading framework to > >> load the firmware instead? > > > > Not in every case. > > > > For example, bnx2 maintainer says that driver and > > firmware are closely tied for his driver. IOW: you upgrade kernel > > and your NIC is not working anymore. > > Firmware may come with a kernel. We have a "install modules", we can also > add "install firmware".
Install where? I boot my machine over NFS, and it has no hard drive. > > Another argument is to make kernel be able to bring up NICs > > without needing firmware images in initramfs/initrd/hard drive. > > It is not possible to bring up things like FC or WiFi without firmware, > what special is in classic NICs? Nothing. It is just not (yet?) decreed from The Very Top that all and every firmware image should be loaded using request_firmware(). Also people may want to gzip something else than firmware. -- vda - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe netdev" in the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
