On Friday 16 October 2009 16:44:14 John W. Linville wrote: > On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 08:42:08AM -0500, Larry Finger wrote: > > On 10/14/2009 03:06 AM, Michael Buesch wrote: > > > On Wednesday 14 October 2009 03:25:30 Larry Finger wrote: > > >> Commit 93bad2b757586fb153ef73b028953a8dcaccde77 entitled "b43: Fix PPC > > >> crash > > >> in rfkill polling on unload" fixed the bug reported in Bugzilla No. > > >> 14181; > > >> however, it introduced a new bug. Whenever the radio switch was turned > > >> off, > > >> it was necessary to unload and reload the driver for it to recognize the > > >> switch again. > > >> > > >> I believe this patch fixes the original problem without introducing any > > >> new > > >> problems. > > >> > > >> Signed-off-by: Larry Finger <larry.fin...@lwfinger.net> > > >> --- > > >> > > > As Michael correctly points out, this patch substitutes one bug for > > another. The current bug affects every bcm43xx device with an rfkill > > switch except BCM4306/3, and the new bug only affects BCM4306/3 users > > with a kill switch. As the latter group may be the empty set, I think > > the trade-off is worth it. > > > > An additional complication is that I do not have the hardware to test > > the PPC faults. The OP of Bugzilla #14181 has been helpful; however, > > if it takes several tries to get a fix, we might miss the 2.6.32 > > release, which would introduce a significant regression. > > > > For the above reasons, I am suggesting that this patch be accepted and > > pushed to mainline even though it has faults. > > Well, hmmm...ok, we have two or three problems here... :-) > > One is whether or not to take this patch. Normally it is against > policy or whatnot to trade one bug for another. In this case, > it seems we would fix a real bug in exchange for a theorhetical > bug that we believe no one actually has. Is that the case? If so, > that might be acceptable.
The patch reduces the number of affected users, so it's probably OK. I can't say if this reduces it to zero, though. The real fix for all this crapola is to rewrite the b43 init to never shutdown the device (or fix rfkill to never shutdown the device completely and instead add a rfkill hook. But that's not going to happen, because people don't like it. Although keeping the wireless device up just for monitoring a stupid pushbutton is not acceptable behavior to me.) > The other problem is a work/patch flow issue. I have occasionally > (some would say too often) snagged a patch directly from this list. I suggest we move as much stuff as possible _off_ this list. It's horribly unreliable, it mangles messages and it's slow. So it's a good idea to add CC linux-wireless list on the very first reply. I think, however, it's always a good idea to resend a patch after the discussion has calmed down. It's way easier for the upstream maintainer. -- Greetings, Michael. _______________________________________________ Bcm43xx-dev mailing list Bcm43xx-dev@lists.berlios.de https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/bcm43xx-dev
