getting new driver into kernel, boot.iso
David Kewley
kewley at cns.caltech.edu
Wed Aug 13 04:16:39 UTC 2003
I got the updated sk98lin (version 6.14) driver disk working, and
successfully used it along with a modified boot.iso CD to do a network
kickstart using the on-board ethernet chip. I'll be writing up what I did,
and posting the writeup and the driver disk files to the web soon. Thanks
again, Michael, for the pointer to Doug Ledford's driver disk kit.
I haven't contacted SysKonnect yet, but I'll be doing that, to urge them to
submit their driver for inclusion in the kernel, and to offer them the
driver disks I made, and the method for making them in the future.
I wanted to reply to a few of Dave Jones' comments:
Dave Jones wrote on Friday 08 August 2003 09:01:
> (click the disk icon 8-)
http://www.syskonnect.com/syskonnect/support/driver/zip/linux/sk98lin_2.4.21_patch.gz
Yeah, I know. :) The problem is, the previous version of the patch (for
kernel 2.4.20) didn't apply cleanly to the RH kernel, and I didn't feel
like struggling through the minutae of making it fit.
> From a quick skim of the code, it seems largely made up of gratuitous
> whitespace changes, which makes it hard to see the real changes.
>
> Lots of changing comments from..
>
> /* foo */
>
> to
> /*
> ** foo
> */
>
> Seems someone got a new text editor with macros for xmas..
Thanks for taking a look at the patch, but I beg to differ. :) There are a
fair number of whitespace changes, but there are (by my eye) lots more
logic changes, plus many added comments and a fair number of non-whitespace
reformats. I actually saw very few of the comment reformats of the type
you show above. Of course, this all matters little. :) I guess my point
is that it seems to me the patch is not trivial (which is what your comment
suggested to me). It weighs in at nearly 18000 lines and 1/2 MB, and I'd
guess around 1/4 of that is substantive.
> Lots of hard coded values changed to #defines - a good thing.
> Some new cards supported - also a good thing.
I didn't notice the hard-coded values changing, but yes, there are lots of
#defines added or changed. And the key thing to me, I think, is the new
card support.
> That aside ISTR someone mentioning that this update backs out
> some stuff that has been fixed in mainline since they last did a push,
> so that needs fixing,
Huh, that could be, I don't know the mainline history of changes to this
driver (and didn't attempt to look them up). I see that there's one RH
patch in 2.4.21 (rawhide) that affects sk98lin slightly, in
linux-2.4.1-compilefailure.patch.
It'd be useful for someone who knows the history of sk98lin to give SK
feedback about what needs patching...
> as do the memory leaks they introduce in their
> ioctls. They may also be other problems, but thats all I picked up
> from a quick 2 minute skim of the diff.
OK, I'll take your word for it. I'm way too inexperienced to judge that,
even in my 30-minute skim of the diff. :)
> Fishing out the good bits of the patch is a worthwhile thing for
> someone to do, but its not a 10 minute job.
I imagine so. What would be the most useful way for this to happen? Who
would best do this? The SK developers? (Then I guess they'd need to know
what was fixed in the mainline kernel version of sk98lin.) Or Alan or a
kernel net driver hacker?
David
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