Re: sio => uart: one port is gone

On Monday 15 September 2008 12:55:33 pm Marcel Moolenaar wrote:
> 
> On Sep 15, 2008, at 9:47 AM, Andriy Gapon wrote:
> 
> > on 15/09/2008 19:41 Marcel Moolenaar said the following:
> >> So, if you compile acpi(4) as a module, you must compile all
> >> it's depending drivers as modules as well. Or you compile acpi
> >> into the kernel...
> >
> > I understand the logic, but OTOH uart can work without acpi too, so  
> > it's not a strict dependency.
> 
> Well, yes. That's what's causing your "problem". You compile a
> kernel without acpi but with uart. As such, uart will be built
> without acpi support. uart does indeed work without acpi.
> 
> The problem is that people then load the acpi module at runtime
> and expect uart to work with acpi. That's not going to fly. If
> one builds uart as a module, all possible support is included
> and it works as expected.
> 
> > Also, this (acpi dependency) doesn't seem to be documented.
> 
> It's standard behaviour.

The problem is that right now we ship with acpi.ko as a module by default and 
have the loader auto-load acpi.ko IFF the machine supports ACPI.  Considering 
how cheap a bus attachment is, I find this argument rather rediculous.  If 
you are building uart into the kernel on i386, just always include the acpi 
attachment.  Other drivers give a more sane user experience.  GENERIC should 
DTRT out-of-the-box, for example.

-- 
John Baldwin