Re: [RFC PATCH v3 05/13] ASoC: soc-pcm: align BE 'atomicity' with that of the FE

[Sameer Pujar]

On 10/13/2021 8:00 PM, Pierre-Louis Bossart wrote:
> Since the flow for DPCM is based on taking a lock for the FE first, we
> need to make sure during the connection between a BE and an FE that
> they both use the same 'atomicity', otherwise we may sleep in atomic
> context.
>
> If the FE is nonatomic, this patch forces the BE to be nonatomic as
> well. That should have no negative impact since the BE 'inherits' the
> FE properties.
>
> However, if the FE is atomic and the BE is not, then the configuration
> is flagged as invalid.

In normal PCM, atomicity seems to apply only for trigger(). Other 
callbacks like prepare, hw_params are executed in non-atomic context. So 
when 'nonatomic' flag is false, still it is possible to sleep in a 
prepare or hw_param callback and this is true for FE as well. So I am 
not sure if atomicity is applicable as a whole even for FE.

At this point it does not cause serious problems, but with subsequent 
patches (especially when patch 7/13 is picked) I see failures. Please 
refer to patch 7/13 thread for more details.


I am wondering if it is possible to only use locks internally for DPCM 
state management and decouple BE callbacks from this, like normal PCMs do?