Linux-kernel mailing list archive 2000-07,: Re: [patch-2.3.46-p2] P6 microcode update support

# Re: [patch-2.3.46-p2] P6 microcode update support

Linus Torvalds (torvalds@transmeta.com)
Wed, 16 Feb 2000 12:46:38 -0800 (PST)

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On Wed, 16 Feb 2000, Tigran Aivazian wrote:
>
> Of Linus' /proc/driver vs /dev argument I understood b) but not a) or
> c). Namely,
>
> a) there is still userspace setup of using ioct on a proc file

I'm not talking about the ioctl() when I say "setup".

I'm talking about the "mknod".

> c) whether kernel has update support or not is determined by whether
> the minor=184 is accessible (perhaps by loading a driver) or not.
> /proc does not make things much easier.

Sure it does. It makes it an issue of being able to use standard tools
like "ls" or do things like

if [ -f /proc/drivers/microcode ]; then
...

in startup scripts.

I absolutely _detest_ people who think it's ok to have specialized
applications for things like this. That's another reason I hate sysctl: I
think it's against the whole philosophy of UNIX. Remember, the UNIX way is
"everything is a process or a file, and you can string many small things
together to create a bigger thing".

You _should_ be able to do something like this

if [ -f /proc/drivers/microcode ]; then
dd if=microcodefile of=/proc/drivers/microcode bs=500 count=1
fi

and having to have special tools is not a good feature.

Linus

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