From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Jan 3 06:11:34 2009 Return-Path: Delivered-To: current@FreeBSD.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C0E341065726 for ; Sat, 3 Jan 2009 06:11:34 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from imp@bsdimp.com) Received: from harmony.bsdimp.com (bsdimp.com [199.45.160.85]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 673B28FC13 for ; Sat, 3 Jan 2009 06:11:34 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from imp@bsdimp.com) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by harmony.bsdimp.com (8.14.2/8.14.1) with ESMTP id n0368EF9064797; Fri, 2 Jan 2009 23:08:14 -0700 (MST) (envelope-from imp@bsdimp.com) Date: Fri, 02 Jan 2009 23:08:25 -0700 (MST) Message-Id: <20090102.230825.1159135437.imp@bsdimp.com> To: rizzo@iet.unipi.it From: "M. Warner Losh" In-Reply-To: <20090103005040.GA64606@onelab2.iet.unipi.it> References: <20090102210133.GA57653@onelab2.iet.unipi.it> <20090102.163308.-1929116900.imp@bsdimp.com> <20090103005040.GA64606@onelab2.iet.unipi.it> X-Mailer: Mew version 5.2 on Emacs 21.3 / Mule 5.0 (SAKAKI) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: current@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: RFC: new utility, kmodpatch X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 03 Jan 2009 06:11:35 -0000 In message: <20090103005040.GA64606@onelab2.iet.unipi.it> Luigi Rizzo writes: : On Fri, Jan 02, 2009 at 04:33:08PM -0700, M. Warner Losh wrote: : > In message: <20090102210133.GA57653@onelab2.iet.unipi.it> : > Luigi Rizzo writes: : ... : > : The usage model I expect is that people will be told something like this : > : : > : To support the BenQ T33 phone on FreeBSD/i386 6.x or 7.x do : > : kmodpatch -t "umass.ko umass_devdescrs 4 4 4 2" - - @0 0x4050 0x4a5 0x0101 0x4200 : > : : > : to support the Asus M2N-Vm DVI MCP67 ethernet on FreeBSD/i386 7.x do : > : kmodpatch -t "if_nfe.ko nfe_devs 2 2 s" - - @0 0x10de 0x54c - : > : and please note TX flow control does not work : > : > This is a good interface for our users? : : i don't know -- in the end it is : "if you trust me, cut&paste this line into a root shell" : which I believe is simpler than : "if you trust me, apply this patch, rebuild the kernel and reinstall" That's debatable :). Let's trade this hard to do thing for this thing that's hard to verify... It might be progress, but it is only tiny, incremental progress... : > It is interesting technology, I'm not sure it is the right tool for : > the device aliasing... : : > It does require some extra care to introduce duplicate entries into : > the table, or reserve space. : : or just overwrite some entry that is unused in your setting, : which again does not work in 100% of the cases but it is very : close to that. Yea, it is a kludge that works... : > With proper aliasing, we could publish : > one big file that has all the new aliases since the last release and : > there'd be no need to modify the leaf drivers. With these : : in principle yes, though that i expect that the source of info is not : freebsd.org (which often does not have a chance to check/try : whether an alias is correct), but rather mailing lists or other users : which happen to have the same device and tried it. I'd suspect it is freebsd.org, with inputs from the mailing lists... Warner