[systemd-devel] [PATCH] Change CONFIG_FW_LOADER_USER_HELPER to default n and don't select it

[Tom Gundersen]

On Tue, Aug 6, 2013 at 11:11 AM, Tom Gundersen <teg at jklm.no> wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 6, 2013 at 10:20 AM, Maarten Lankhorst
> <m.b.lankhorst at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Op 05-08-13 18:29, Andy Lutomirski schreef:
>>> The systemd commit below can delay firmware loading by multiple
>>> minutes if CONFIG_FW_LOADER_USER_HELPER=y.  Unfortunately no one
>>> noticed that the systemd-udev change would break new kernels as well
>>> as old kernels.
>>>
>>> Since the kernel apparently can't count on reasonable userspace
>>> support, turn this thing off by default.
>>>
>>> commit a3bd8447be4ea2ce230eb8ae0e815c04d85fa15a
>>> Author: Tom Gundersen <teg at jklm.no>
>>> Date:   Mon Mar 18 15:12:18 2013 +0100
>>>
>>>     udev: make firmware loading optional and disable by default
>>>
>>>     Distros that whish to support old kernels should set
>>>       --with-firmware-dirs="/usr/lib/firmware/updates:/usr/lib/firmware"
>>>     to retain the old behaviour.
>>>
>> methinks this patch should be reverted then,
>
> Well, all the code is still there, so it can be enabled if anyone wants it.
>
>> or a stub should be added to udev to always fail firmware loading so timeouts don't occur.
>
> I think the only use (if any) of a userspace firmware loader would be
> for anyone who wants a custom one (i.e., not udev), so we shouldn't
> just fail the loading from udev unconditionally.
>
> How about we just improve the udev documentation a bit, similar to
> Andy's kernel patch?

Sorry, I should first have checked. We already document this in the README:

>        Userspace firmware loading is deprecated, will go away, and
>        sometimes causes problems:
>          CONFIG_FW_LOADER_USER_HELPER=n

-t