Re: [patch] e1000=y && e1000e=m regression fix

From: Randy Dunlap
Date: Thu Apr 10 2008 - 17:44:34 EST


On Thu, 10 Apr 2008 14:23:50 -0700 Kok, Auke wrote:

> Ingo Molnar wrote:
> > * Kok, Auke <auke-jan.h.kok@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> >>>> config E1000E_ENABLED
> >>>> - def_bool E1000E != n
> >>>> + def_bool E1000E = y || ((E1000E != n) && (E1000 = E1000E))
> >>> Uh, that's /not/ what Ingo's patch does. His patch makes e1000
> >>> claim the e1000e IDs if e1000 is built-in and e1000e is a module.
> >> so that's definately _not_ what I would like to see at all. Matthew
> >> points out that this will just prolong users to use e1000 instead of
> >> e1000e (which is what they should be encouraged to switch to in those
> >> cases).
> >>
> >> so I'm dropping my ACK
> >
> > why you want to cripple an existing, rather well working and popular
> > Linux driver is beyond me.
>
> Because we decided a long time ago to do this driver split. And everyone at that
> time agreed with that, and we set out to do this. And part of that plan was to
> move (not copy) the device IDs over.
>
> We accepted that that might break some kernel developers' systems in the process
> and consulted several vendors and distros if they were OK with the change and they
> all agreed with the plan.
>
> I do not want people with PCI Express e1000 cards to use e1000 for any day longer
> than is strictly needed, and I certainly do not want to prolong the period where
> both drivers could work on their adapters. That will be a far bigger nightmare for
> me than just a few kernel developers having a bad day.
>
> I guarantee, I will get e-mails about 2.6.25+e1000(e) issues for far longer then
> you guys :)
>
> Users will outnumber us kernel developers in complaints if we keep the situation
> unclear to them, and we already told them that they need to switch to e1000e for
> their PCI Express devices. If we now do stuff like what you proposed in that
> patch, we just prolong this confusion. That cannot be good for anyone. Imagine if
> distro's start picking random device IDs or worse. Stuff like that is already
> happening, and discussions like these just add to the confusion.
>
> Again - If there is a way to auto-enable e1000e in the right way so that more
> systems migrate better then I'm all for it (even if forcing E1000E=y). But it
> seems that the various patches proposed don't cut it and frankly Kconfig is
> completely inadequate as a hardware enabling script since it knows absolutely
> nothing about the hardware in the first place. And it wasn't meant for that
> either. `make oldconfig` is not the answer ;).

It would make much more sense IMO to add
CONFIG_E1000E=y
to defconfig ... and also to change
CONFIG_FUSION=y
to
CONFIG_FUSION=n
while there :)

> Again - this has happened before, I remember many of my boxes not booting because
> SATA Kconfig options changed and all my boxes failed to move the proper Kconfig
> symbols over when I ran `make oldconfig` myself. Somewhere around 2.6.20 or so.


---
~Randy
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/