Re: [RFC 2/4] driver core: Allow early registration of devices

[Thierry Reding]

On Fri, Aug 16, 2013 at 02:06:37PM -0700, Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 16, 2013 at 10:39:21PM +0200, Thierry Reding wrote:
> > +static DEFINE_MUTEX(device_early_mutex);
> > +static LIST_HEAD(device_early_list);
> > +static bool device_is_early = true;
> > +
> > +/*
> > + * Keep a list of early registered devices so that they can be fully
> > + * registered at a later point in time.
> > + */
> > +static void device_early_add(struct device *dev)
> 
> __init?

Yes.

> > +{
> > +	mutex_lock(&device_early_mutex);
> > +	list_add_tail(&dev->p->early, &device_early_list);
> > +	mutex_unlock(&device_early_mutex);
> > +}
> > +
> > +/*
> > + * Mark the early device registration phase as completed.
> > + */
> > +int __init device_early_init(void)
> > +{
> > +	device_is_early = false;
> > +
> > +	return 0;
> > +}
> > +
> > +/*
> > + * Fixup platform devices instantiated from device tree. The problem is
> > + * that since early registration happens before interrupt controllers
> > + * have been setup, the OF core code won't know how to map interrupts.
> > + */
> > +int __init platform_device_early_fixup(struct platform_device *pdev)
> 
> This shouldn't be in this file, because:
> 
> > +/*
> > + * Fully register early devices.
> > + */
> > +int __init device_early_done(void)
> > +{
> > +	struct device_private *private;
> > +
> > +	list_for_each_entry(private, &device_early_list, early) {
> > +		struct device *dev = private->device;
> > +		int err;
> > +
> > +		if (dev->bus == &platform_bus_type) {
> 
> Why special case the platform bus?  We are trying to move things off of
> the platform bus, don't make it harder to do that :)

I heard about that, but I must have missed the thread where this was
discussed. Can you point me to it?

> > +			struct platform_device *pdev = to_platform_device(dev);
> > +
> > +			err = platform_device_early_fixup(pdev);
> > +			if (err < 0)
> > +				dev_err(&pdev->dev,
> > +					"failed to fixup device %s: %d\n",
> > +					dev_name(&pdev->dev), err);
> > +		}
> 
> You should just have a bus callback that can be made here that, if
> present, can be called.  That way any bus can handle this type of thing,
> not just the platform one.

You mean something like an .early_fixup() in struct bus_type? That would
indeed be much cleaner. As I mentioned this is a very early prototype
and this particular hunk exists specifically to fixup the platform
devices created by the device tree helpers so that the kernel actually
boots to the login prompt.

> Not that I really like the whole idea anyway, but I doubt there's much I
> can do about it...

Well, getting feedback from you and others is precisely the reason why I
wanted to post this early. There must be a reason why you don't like it,
so perhaps you can share your thoughts and we can mould this into
something that you'd be more comfortable with.

To be honest I don't particularly like it either. It's very hackish for
core code. But on the other hand there are a few device/driver ordering
problems that this (or something similar) would help solve. I'm
certainly open to discuss alternatives and perhaps there's a much
cleaner way to solve the problem.

Thierry

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