[systemd-devel] [PATCH] Drop the udev firmware loader

[Zbigniew Jędrzejewski-Szmek]

On Thu, May 29, 2014 at 07:51:29PM -0700, Greg KH wrote:
> On Fri, May 30, 2014 at 04:41:01AM +0200, Michael Biebl wrote:
> > 2014-05-30 4:32 GMT+02:00 Michael Biebl <mbiebl at gmail.com>:
> > > 2014-05-30 4:26 GMT+02:00 Greg KH <gregkh at linuxfoundation.org>:
> > >
> > >> You update systemd but you don't update the kernel?  How does that make
> > >> any sense?
> > >
> > > There might be very valid reasons why you need to stick with the old
> > > kernel. As said, one example could be that the new one simply doesn't
> > > boot. Requiring lock-step upgrades makes the system less
> > > fault-tolerant.
> > > So where possible this should be avoided.
> > 
> > What I'm trying to say here is: let's rip this code out once all
> > stable distros out there in the wild ship a kernel with builti-in
> > firmware loader support, but please not before.
> 
> What is "all"?
> 
> Do we really have to wait 10+ years just because some random disto
> doesn't want to update their kernel?
> 
> Since when does systemd care about what random distros do?
It should. I'd hardly call Debian a random distro. They are bound to
have lots of issues with the conversion to systemd as the default
on their wide range of supported systems. Keep such compatibility
stuff around just makes things easier for everyone. Even for us,
the cost of maintaining some ifdef-ed code is lower than handling
the additional bug reports from people who compile their own systemd.

> > Keeping the userspace firmware loader for a little longer costs us
> > nothing and simplifies things for downstreams. So let's be nice to
> > them. I don't see a good reason to rush the removal of the userspace
> > firmware loader.
> 
> Why not just port the in-kernel firmware loader to those kernel
> versions?  That solves more problems than sticking with this code
> does...
This doesn't readily solve the problem with requiring lock-step
upgrades.  You first have to deploy the updated kernel, then install
newer systemd.

Zbyszek