On Sat, 2009-03-21 at 12:55 +0000, Scott James Remnant wrote:

> I think this is dangerous - for example what if the option was to
> correct a security issue?  Dropping the option would expose the hole
> again, you want the module load to fail and somebody to resolve the
> issue.

I see the point but I think it can be argued both ways. Take for example
the original reason for my report - the network driver failing to load.

It caught me out initially because to begin with I thought it was 'just
another NetworkManager issue' and sighed resignedly. If I were a typical
non-technical end user I'd have been stuck.

A non-technical user would have been left with no network access and no
way to do any kind of basic search on-line that might have helped them
discover the solution.

As it was I switched to a console and did "lsmod | grep iwl" and was
further confused that the module hadn't loaded. That led to me trying to
manually load it (which implies knowing how to use modprobe and which
module file-name) and getting the cryptic:

Unknown symbol in module, or unknown parameter (see dmesg)

If I were an non-technical end-user I would likely have no idea what
'dmesg' was or how to 'see' it. Also, I support countless end users that
don't even appreciate that /var/log/* exists or what all the files there
contain and would have no idea of how to look for that innocuous
looking:

cfg80211: Unknown parameter `ieee80211_regdom'

The message doesn't suggest a major issue as, for example, a PANIC would
and is easily missed in the noise of other messages.

As Andy points out there could be issues with Hardy/Intrepid > Jaunty
dist-upgrades once Jaunty is released, but my concern is that users will
be left unexpectedly high-and-dry and likely extremely frustrated.

Maybe we could modify my approach in some way and make use of the new
notify-osd for desktop users at least? Maybe capture output from
modprobe into a boot-time log-file and, if it contains any issues, bring
them to the attention of the user? With that you continue failing the
module load but use my patch mechanism to capture the reason why?

-- 
Wifi driver will fail to load if regulatory domain set in module options
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/343026
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