Re: firmware loading

[Matthew Dillon <dillon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

:I generally avoid loading firmware at attaching time, except that you
:can't get the MAC address without firmware being loaded.  You can't
:change firmware without recompile the module or kernel if it is loaded
:at attaching time.  And it may introduce some firmware license
:problems too.  And I perfer _not_ to play with filesystem in driver
:code, no matter at attaching time or runtime.
:
:>
:> the firmware_image_load_file can be the appropriate candidate for such
:> functionality provided  that it just returns the raw data from the
:> /etc/xxx firmware file without allocating the dma resources.
:
:We will always need to allocate DMA resources for the firmware loading.
:
:Best Regards,
:sephe
:
:-- 
:Live Free or Die
 
    kern/kern_firmware.c will take care of the DMA resources.  It looks
    quite nifty, but I'm not sure how well it actually works since nothing
    is using it yet.  Johannes and Joerg committed it a long time ago,
    back in 2005.

    In anycase, I agree with Sephe.  Just have an ioctl that tells the
    driver to load the firmware.  It is also possible to make it hands-free
    by having a SYSINIT for the driver that runs after the root filesystem
    has been mounted, plus code in the MOD_LOAD case for when the driver
    is loaded with kldload.  There are lots of ways to do it... an ioctl
    is the easiest way at least during development.


					-Matt
					Matthew Dillon 
					<dillon@backplane.com>