[alsa-devel] [PATCH 1/1] hdsp: allow firmware loading from inside the kernel

[Takashi Iwai]

At Tue, 12 May 2009 09:25:27 +0200,
Raphaël Doursenaud wrote:
> 
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> Takashi Iwai a écrit :
> > At Tue, 12 May 2009 09:05:19 +0200,
> > Raphaël Doursenaud wrote:
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> >> Takashi Iwai a écrit :
> >>> At Tue, 12 May 2009 08:47:29 +0200,
> >>> Raphaël Doursenaud wrote:
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> >>>> Takashi Iwai a écrit :
> >>>>> At Tue, 12 May 2009 08:16:08 +0200,
> >>>>> Raphaël Doursenaud wrote:
> >>>>>> From: Raphaël Doursenaud <rdoursenaud at free.fr>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Allow the use of  the FIRMWARE_IN_KERNEL option with hdsp cards and
> >>>>>> in-kernel driver.
> >>>>> Did it really work without problems?
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Takashi
> >>>> Tested over the weekend with two multifaces in my DAW.
> >>>> Got no problem.
> >>> Interesting.
> >>> Did you build the firmware file into the kernel, or not?
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Takashi
> >> Yes I built all hdsp fimware files (multiface_firmware.bin
> >> multiface_firmware_rev11.bin digiface_firmware.bin
> >> digiface_firmware_rev11.bin) into the kernel.
> >> It's the aim of this patch.
> > 
> > Well, the problem I'm concerned is that the driver can be compiled
> > in even if you have no built-in firmware.  And there is no restriction
> > or dependency check in Kconfig, so far.
> > 
> > Could you test how the kernel behaves without the built-in firmware?
> > Does it hang or give any critical error?
> > 
> > 
> > thanks,
> > 
> > Takashi
> Could you be more specific?
> I'm not sure to understand why it could be a problem.
> Do you think that if I set FIRMWARE_IN_KERNEL without compiling the
> firmware(s) in-kernel the request_firmware() will not resolve and cause
> an error?

Yes, exactly.
request_firmware() shall fail in that case likely after a long
time-out (unless you have the firmware files in initrd) because there
is really no file / data available at the time it's called.
And I'm not sure whether this could lead to a fatal operation error.


Takashi