Re: [RFC][PATCH] Documentation: Ask driver writers to provide suspend/resume support

[Pavel Machek]

Hi!

> Add a paragraph in Documentation/SubmittingDrivers requesting that the
> susped/resume support be provided by new device drivers.
> 
> Add the document Documentation/power/drivers-testing.txt giving general
> instructions for the testing of suspend/resume support in device drivers.
> 
> ---
>  Documentation/SubmittingDrivers         |   10 ++
>  Documentation/power/drivers-testing.txt |  146 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>  2 files changed, 156 insertions(+)
> 
> Index: linux-2.6.20-git13/Documentation/SubmittingDrivers
> ===================================================================
> --- linux-2.6.20-git13.orig/Documentation/SubmittingDrivers
> +++ linux-2.6.20-git13/Documentation/SubmittingDrivers
> @@ -87,6 +87,16 @@ Clarity:	It helps if anyone can see how 
>  		driver that intentionally obfuscates how the hardware works
>  		it will go in the bitbucket.
>  
> +PM support:	Since Linux is used on many portable and desktop systems, your
> +		driver is likely to be used on such a system and therefore it
> +		should support basic power management by implementing, if
> +		necessary, the .suspend and .resume methods used during the
> +		system-wide suspend and resume transitions.  You should verify
> +		that your driver correctly handles the suspend and resume, but
> +		if you are unable to ensure that, please at least define the
> +		.suspend method returning the -ENOSYS ("Function not
> +		implemented") error.

Perhaps pointer to Documentation/power/drivers-testing.txt would be
useful here?


>  Control:	In general if there is active maintainance of a driver by
>  		the author then patches will be redirected to them unless
>  		they are totally obvious and without need of checking.
> Index: linux-2.6.20-git13/Documentation/power/drivers-testing.txt
> ===================================================================
> --- /dev/null
> +++ linux-2.6.20-git13/Documentation/power/drivers-testing.txt
> @@ -0,0 +1,146 @@
> +Testing suspend and resume support in drivers
> +	(C) 2007 Rafael J. Wysocki <rjw@xxxxxxx>

If you add copyright, maybe specify license, too? (", GPL" should be enough).

> +Unfortunately, to effectively test the support for the system-wide suspend and
> +resume transitions in a driver, it is necessary to suspend and resume a fully
> +functional system with this driver loaded.  Moreover, that should be done many
> +times, preferably many times in a row, and separately for the suspend to disk
> +(STD) and the suspend to RAM (STR) transitions, because each of these cases
> +involves different ordering of operations and different interactions with the
> +machine's BIOS.

Hmm, actually it is nice to mix STR + STD, too... and not sure if
"many" is right word... It sounds scary :-).

> +To verify that the STD works, you can try to suspend in the "reboot" mode:
> +
> +# echo reboot > /sys/power/disk
> +# echo disk > /sys/power/state
> +
> +and the system should suspend, reboot, resume and get back to the command prompt
> +where you have started the transition.  If that happens, the STD is most likely
> +to work correctly, but you need to repeat the test at least a couple of times in
> +a row for confidence.  This is necessary because some problems only

, because?

> +c) Advanced debugging

Actually, those debugging instructions look really cool. Perhaps we
should split them into separate file, as it is also interesting for
users trying to get suspend working on their machine?

> +II. Testing the driver
> +
> +Once you have resolved the suspend/resume-related problems with your test system
> +without the new driver, you are ready to test it:
> +
> +1. Build the driver as a module, load it and try the STD in the test mode
> +(cf. 1a)).
> +
> +2. Compile the driver directly into the kernel and try the STD in the test mode
> +(cf. 1a)).
> +
> +3. Build the driver as a module, load it and attempt to suspend to disk in the
> +"reboot", "shutdown" and "platform" modes (cf. 1).
> +
> +4. Compile the driver directly into the kernel and attempt to suspend to disk in
> +the "reboot", "shutdown" and "platform" modes (cf. 1).
> +
> +5. Build the driver as a module, load it and attempt to run s2ram (cf. 2).
> +
> +6. Compile the driver directly into the kernel and attempt to run s2ram (cf. 2).
> +
> +Each of the above tests should be repeated several times and if any of them
> +fails, the driver cannot be regarded as suspend/resume-safe.

Maybe reorder the tests so that poor submitter will not have to do 3
kernel compiles?
									Pavel
-- 
(english) http://www.livejournal.com/~pavelmachek
(cesky, pictures) http://atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~pavel/picture/horses/blog.html
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