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Date:      Mon, 21 Nov 2005 12:39:48 -0700 (MST)
From:      Warner Losh <imp@bsdimp.com>
To:        deischen@freebsd.org
Cc:        arch@freebsd.org, nate@root.org
Subject:   Re: cvs commit: src/sys/modules/iwi Makefile src/sys/dev/iwi if_iwi.c if_iwireg.h if_iwivar.h
Message-ID:  <20051121.123948.39201087.imp@bsdimp.com>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.43.0511211338260.24616-100000@sea.ntplx.net>
References:  <20051121.113052.71133065.imp@bsdimp.com> <Pine.GSO.4.43.0511211338260.24616-100000@sea.ntplx.net>

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> Not taking one side or the other...  Can we use a common
> tool to convert firmware to a kld?  Just pass it the
> symbol name or whatever else you need?

The answer is 'it depends'...

> I guess this makes the assumption that most firmware consists
> of just one object file.

The object files vary somewhat as to what is in the file.  Some are S
records in text format, while otherrs are COFF or some other format in
binary form.  I had assumed that each driver would want to parse
things out into a useful form in the conversion program to keep the
kernel portion as small as possible.  This is inharently driver
dependent.

However, if we wanted to have a raw bits into the kernel conduit, then
we could have a tool, so long as it handled an arbitrary number of
files.  Many drivers have a 'primary' and a 'secondary' firmware to
load.  But presenting an array to the driver, or having the driver
load multiple files is a way around this.

Having the kernel loader be able to load arbitrary files would be even
better...

Warner



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