Using the "best available" driver

[Dominik Brodowski]

Hi,

On Mon, Dec 05, 2005 at 03:40:18PM -0800, Jean Tourrilhes wrote:
> 	Now, I want to start brainstorming about the next step : how
> do we offer this functionality in a friendly form to our users.

Well, on a modularized kernel, the /etc/modprobe.conf blacklisting method
seems to be quite user friendly, even though it requires a reboot. Possibly
the graphical user interface to this could also check whether a driver
listed in the blacklist is loaded at the moment, determine the device, rmmod
the driver, and then issue echo 1 > /sys/devices/path_to_device/uevent, so
that the now proper module gets loaded. (note: requires rmmod of PCMCIA
modules currently bound to devices. That's one of the things you'll get once
the IOCTL is finally gone)

> 	The sysfs commands are fine, but they are rather obscure, and
> are not persistent. What would be nice is to have a list associating
> cards IDs with the driver needed. Not an axhaustive list, but just the
> user override. Then, each time the card is loaded, the hotplug script
> would do the necessary magic to get the right driver binded (and
> potentially unload the uncessary driver).

I'd consider this to be too complicated -- we'd need yet another table of
IDs of drivers and devices. Having them in one place where it matters is
good.

> > The same (unbind, bind) is possible for PCI devices. Soon you will also be
> > able to
> > 	rmmod orinoco_cs
> > 	modprobe hostap_cs
> > but that depends on the ioctl removal.
> 
> 	Could you clarify ? You are talking about removing the old
> cardmgr ioctl ? What's the plan there ?

Documentation/feature-removal-schedule.txt
What:   PCMCIA control ioctl (needed for pcmcia-cs [cardmgr, cardctl])
When:   November 2005

The actual removal will take a few months more, I suspect, but that's the
plan yes. And with the easy /etc/modprobe.conf blacklisting method as well
as the "rmmod X && sleep 1 && modprobe Y" being available immediately after
the IOCTL is gone I don't think that this is a blocking issue. Do you agree?

Thanks,
	Dominik