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Subject: Re: RFC: Removing hpt* drivers from GENERIC
From: Andrew Turner <andrew@fubar.geek.nz>
In-Reply-To: <0100015f557d9cd2-098d2e99-d4c4-45ce-90bf-47b76455a6de-000000@email.amazonses.com>
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2017 03:12:57 +0100
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To: Colin Percival <cperciva@tarsnap.com>
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> On 25 Oct 2017, at 22:43, Colin Percival <cperciva@tarsnap.com> wrote:
>=20
> Hi developers,
>=20
> I'd like to remove the hpt* drivers from GENERIC.  These are the =
drivers
> for the HighPoint storage hardware -- SATA (hptnr) and RAID (hpt27xx, =
hptiop,
> hptmv, hptrr).
>=20
> My reason for wanting to remove them is that the hpt27xx and hptnr =
drivers
> spend ~150 ms in their DEVICE_PROBE routines every time the system =
boots.
> Since they are roughly 1000x slower than the median driver, this is =
clearly
> excessive; unfortunately the time is being spent inside a binary blob, =
so
> there is no apparent way to fix the drivers.  (The other three drives =
from
> the same vendor -- hptiop, hptmv, and hptrr -- don't exhibit this =
particular
> bug, but I don't see any strong argument in favour of not removing =
them along
> with the two problem drivers.)
>=20
> All of these are available via kernel modules, so the impact upon =
users
> should be minimal.  Obviously I would not plan on MFCing this change.
>=20
> Any objections?

Why are we building these binary blobs into the kernel? We don=E2=80=99t =
have the source for these so it=E2=80=99s more difficult to audit them =
for security issues. If the user wishes to load them as modules they are =
fine to do that, however I don=E2=80=99t think we shouldn=E2=80=99t be =
linking any of these blobs in a GENERIC kernel.

Andrew