Re: [PATCH] Fix /sys/device/.../power/state regression

From: Matthew Garrett
Date: Fri Jan 26 2007 - 18:15:56 EST


On Fri, Jan 26, 2007 at 01:56:41PM -0800, David Brownell wrote:

> I thought the resolution was that fixing a few of those drivers
> should solve the problem Matthew needed resolved, and that in
> the meanwhile "rmmod drivername" should suffice. There also seemed
> to be agreement that power management for wireless devices needed
> more work; there might need to be a state between "down/off" and
> "configured and able to talk IP".

It's certainly the case that fixing those drivers would result in a
better long-term situation - however, nobody currently seems to have any
interest in doing so, and I've only got access to a subset of the
hardware and approximately none of the documentation. It's likely that
I'll end up spending time on that, but right now I'm afraid that other
things are taking a higher priority.

I'm not sure what you mean by using rmmod instead. Most drivers don't
explicitly set the power state when unbinding, and I can't see anywhere
in the generic PCI code that will do it.

As I've said before, I think it's unreasonable to cripple interfaces for
(mostly) aesthetic reasons without ensuring that equivalent
functionality already exists. This patch restores useful functionality
without breaking the extra sanity checks that you've added. I appreciate
that it's not an interface that you want to support in the long term
(well, even the short term...), and that suggesting its removal provides
a useful incentive to fix things properly in the long term. But it would
be nice if we didn't make it impossible to do this until the right thing
is implemented.

--
Matthew Garrett | mjg59@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
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