Adding vendor drivers...

From: Jeff Garzik (jgarzik@mandrakesoft.mandrakesoft.com)
Date: Tue Oct 03 2000 - 07:11:01 EST


So, when a vendor has to add a new driver, especially with the new-style
makefiles, you have a one-line patch to a makefile, a one-line patch to
a Config.in, and a patch which adds the driver to the tree.

It would make adding new drivers to vendor kernel packages a whole lot
easier and more modular if you could add a driver simply by doing:

        cp driver.c driver.config.in driver.mak linux/extras

...and then the makefile and config system automatically slurps this
data. extras/Makefile could look something like:

        ...new style init..
        include *.mak
        ...new style obj-x handling...
        include Rules.make

Something similar would have to be worked out for Config.in.

Of course, for anything complex, patching is still an option.

Comments? Suggested implementation? :)

I think this feature would be valuable for many vendors. In addition to
making it easier to add new drivers, it makes the separation between
kernel changes and vendor additions more apparently and obvious.

Regards,

        Jeff

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