Loading custom DSDT

[Dave Jones]

On Tue, Oct 25, 2005 at 02:20:59PM +0100, Richard Hughes wrote:
 > On Tue, 2005-10-25 at 14:07 +0200, Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:
 > > Am Dienstag, den 25.10.2005, 12:08 +0100 schrieb Richard Hughes:
 > > > What is the fedora "recommended" way of installing a new ACPI DSDT? Can
 > > > we make the process of loading a new asl file easier for users in FC5? 
 > > 
 > > See this thread for some more information:
 > > 
 > > https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2005-September/msg00287.html
 > > 
 > > And especially:
 > > https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2005-September/msg00292.html
 > > https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2005-September/msg00291.html
 > > https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=169014
 > 
 > Thanks for the links.
 > 
 > If Mandriva, SuSE and Ubuntu use this patch by default, then Fedora is
 > the only other big current distro (that I would consider enterprise
 > ready) to *not* support loading a custom dsdt.

Mandriva, SuSE and Ubuntu also carry lots of other patches we don't
have in Fedora, so the analogy is pointless.  One of the goals of Fedora
is to stay as close as possible to upstream.   The number of "Feature" patches
in the current kernels are very low compared to the number of patches
fixing problems.  Adding this buys *nothing* to most end-users, but empowers
a select few to fiddle with their DSDTs.  Frankly, if you know what you're
doing enough to rewrite a DSDT, you should know how to build a kernel.

End-users shouldn't need to know what a DSDT, or an initrd is.

I don't want to see a single bug report in the Fedora bugzilla
with the words "I recompiled my DSDT because..".  If I do, it'll
instantly get closed CANTFIX, as it's completely unsupportable.
We're already severely outnumbered by the number of bugs coming
in for ACPI, and adding this just adds yet another possibility for disaster.

 > You try telling a new user to recompile their kernel, from a src.rpm, with an
 > extra patch, into a new rpm, which they then have to install, and you'll
 > understand why I'm worried... Everytime a new kernel update comes along,
 > we have to go kernel-a-building yet again.

And telling a new user to recompile their DSDT is ok ? Please.
(and the idea that people can download random DSDTs from websites
 just fills me with joy -- people _will_ 'try' ones that aren't
 for their machine "because the model numbers were similar")

 > Which is fine if you are a kernel hacker, or an ACPI maintainer, but for
 > joe average, who just wants this "linux thing" to "just work" -- it's not
 > good enough.

End-users shouldn't need to know what a DSDT, or an initrd is.

 > At the moment, should I tell my new-user to either switch to ubuntu,
 > suse or mandriva to use the corrected dsdt? Don't get me wrong, I love
 > Fedora, but I think sometimes we forget that users != developers.

End-users shouldn't need to know what a DSDT, or an initrd is.

		Dave