[lug] Setting module options when booting

[John Karns]

On Wed, 26 Sep 2001, Glenn Murray said:

> Thanks to all responded to me in the thread "RE: [lug] Transmit error,
> Tx status register 82", especially Rob Riggs, whose advice to root
> around the kernel docs eventually led to the solution.  I tried the
> 3c90x driver from 3Com, but it would not compile.  What worked was
> finding the correct options to send to the driver.  I found those at a
> site quoting Donald Becker's home page.  There I found an opaque
> description of how the options were supposed to work, but also an
> example which solved my problem.

This has usually led to frustration for me.  I was once able to find such
info by scouring through the code, but it's all too rare.  Whenever I look
through driver source in search of such information, I wonder why they
don't develop a convention to put such information at the top of the
driver source file, just as they do the standard GPL blurb.  Info such as
what parameters are available, what they do, and the purpose of the
particular .c or .asm module.  I don't think that it would have to be
anything too detailed.  To have to go chasing all over the 'net for such
information is frustrating and a loss of time.

Excuse the rant, but I really do think that this should be an important
consideration for the kernel developers.

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John Karns                                        jkarns at csd.net