[pvrusb2] Propagating 16KB FX2 FW fix [was: pvrusb2 Digest, Vol 51, Issue 14]

[Mike Isely]

On Mon, 23 Nov 2009, Joel Mayer wrote:

> 2. Updating Isely Drivers and Firmware-
> 
> Two or three times a week I go to a terminal as root
> in my SuSE Linux 11.1 distro and type  in "zypper up".
> (omit the quotes). Often as not, zypper rewards me
> with a big bunch of much appreciated updates to my
> base collection of software.
> 
> Time after time I see messages saying: mythtv component
> this or that is about to be updated. But I have yet to
> detect a reference to Mike Isely's software. Why is
> that? Have I configured my repository searches
> incorrectly? Is there no communication between the
> Isely web pages and the people at zypper?
> 
> I read someplace zypper is so smart, it resolves
> dependencies so well. That there is a measurable
> improvement in processor speed on zypper installed
> software compared to software installed by Yast.
> 
> That being the case, what do I have to do to get
> Isely enterprises hooked up with zypper?

Joel:

I don't have anything to do with the SuSE distribution.  If I got into 
the business of trying to directly support different distributions I 
would not be able to get anything else done.  With that said, if a 
distro has questions or feedback about integrating changes from this 
driver I will help where I can same as I would do for anyone else.

But distros usually don't have to explicitly mess with this driver.  
All changes in the standalone driver eventually make it into the 
mainline Linux kernel tree.  Once there, kernel package maintainers will 
inherit it and then it's really just a matter of making sure the driver 
is configured in when they build their distro's kernel (and that is 
usually not a problem).

The immediate issue right now is that we're still in the stabilization 
window for the 2.6.32 kernel.  The next merge window (for 2.6.33) won't 
open until after that kernel is released.  Once that happens then the 
accumulated changes from the v4l-dvb repository - which usually include 
this driver - get sent up to the kernel tree.  So unless something else 
specific is done, the 16KB fix won't get into the kernel until 2.6.33.  
There is allowance for fixes to be backported to older kernels provided 
such fixes are either important enough or low enough risk.  I think this 
16KB fix would qualify, especially since this can be made into a very 
tiny low risk patch.  This might make it possible to get this fix into 
2.6.32, 2.6.31, and/or 2.6.27 but I don't know yet since it's not my 
call what actually gets merged.  I'll see what I can do.

  -Mike

-- 

Mike Isely
isely @ isely (dot) net
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