Re: [PATCH] ALSA: hda - Defer probe when loading patch firmware

From: Takashi Iwai <tiwai@suse.de>
To: Thierry Reding <thierry.reding@avionic-design.de>
Cc: Jaroslav Kysela <perex@perex.cz>,
	David Henningsson <david.henningsson@canonical.com>,
	alsa-devel@alsa-project.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH] ALSA: hda - Defer probe when loading patch firmware
Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2012 09:42:48 +0200	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <s5h7gt8fr47.wl%tiwai@suse.de> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20120809073642.GA24695@avionic-0098.mockup.avionic-design.de>

At Thu, 9 Aug 2012 09:36:42 +0200,
Thierry Reding wrote:
> 
> On Thu, Aug 09, 2012 at 09:31:30AM +0200, Takashi Iwai wrote:
> > At Thu, 9 Aug 2012 09:08:13 +0200,
> > Thierry Reding wrote:
> > > 
> > > On Thu, Aug 09, 2012 at 08:57:13AM +0200, Takashi Iwai wrote:
> > > > At Thu,  9 Aug 2012 08:45:23 +0200,
> > > > Thierry Reding wrote:
> > > > > 
> > > > > Recent changes to the firmware loading helpers cause drivers to stall
> > > > > when firmware is loaded during the module_init() call. The snd-hda-intel
> > > > > module requests firmware if the patch= parameter is used to load a patch
> > > > > file. This patch works around the problem by deferring the probe in such
> > > > > cases, which will cause the module to load successfully and the driver
> > > > > binding to the device outside the module_init() call.
> > > > 
> > > > Is the "recent" change meant 3.6 kernel, or in linux-next?
> > > > 
> > > > In anyway, I don't understand why such a change was allowed.  Most
> > > > drivers do call request_firmware() at the device probing time.
> > > > If this really has to be resolved in the driver side, it must be a bug
> > > > in the firmware loader core code.
> > > 
> > > A good explanation of the problem and subsequent discussion can be found
> > > here:
> > > 
> > > 	http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.drivers.video-input-infrastructure/49975
> > 
> > Yeah, but it doesn't justify this ugly module option.
> > It's a simple bug.  Papering over it with this option doesn't fix
> > anything.
> 
> It's not an option, all it does is defer probing if and only if the
> patch parameter was specified to make sure the firmware load won't
> stall. I realize that this may not be an optimal solution, but at least
> it fixes the problem with no fallout.

Ah sorry, I misread the patch.

Then it shouldn't be checked at that point.  Since 3.5 kernel, the
probing code was already split for vga_switcheroo support.  The point
you added is the second stage.

Takashi