Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/2] bnx2: factor out gzip unpacker

From: Denys Vlasenko <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2007 20:18:06 +0100

On Friday 21 September 2007 19:36, [email-masked] 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.

Another argument is to make kernel be able to bring up NICs
without needing firmware images in initramfs/initrd/hard drive.
--
vda