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Re: alloc_etherdev breaks ether=

To: jgarzik@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Jeff Garzik)
Subject: Re: alloc_etherdev breaks ether=
From: Alan Cox <alan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2001 16:18:12 +0100 (BST)
Cc: andrewm@xxxxxxxxxx (Andrew Morton), davem@xxxxxxxxxx (David S. Miller), netdev@xxxxxxxxxxx, alan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Alan Cox), torvalds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (Linus Torvalds)
In-reply-to: <3B3C9089.D85A26@mandrakesoft.com> from "Jeff Garzik" at Jun 29, 2001 10:28:25 AM
Sender: owner-netdev@xxxxxxxxxxx
> Here is my proposed -2.4- fix:

Sounds like a 2.5 fix

> ether=XXX is legacy mess that doesn't really apply in the present day. 
> It is useful for managing a bunch of ISA drivers built into the kernel,

And several PCI ones

> For all other drivers, do the normal thing and use a __setup function to
> set boot-time options, which is really all that 3c59x and the other
> Becker-derived drivers need.

By all means add the extra setup options. It makes migration easier. However
I would point out that the original implementation of eth= worked perfectly
for 2.4 and someone broke it. 

When you create ethfoo it creates a net_device initialised with ethfoo's
parameters, so its also trivial to add

        eth_get_params(struct something *)

to handle the other cases without breaking compatibility

> know of build PCI net drivers as modules.  So, yes this change would be
> a "flag day" type change, but it should affect very few people, and the
> people it does affect are smart enough to s/ether=/3c59x=/

2.5 IMHO, and I agree entirely that 3c59x= is a lot saner, but I just happen
to think its about time 2.4 started pretending to be a production OS




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