Re: [PATCH] drm/fb-helper: pass physical dimensions to fbdev

From: David Lechner
Date: Wed Aug 02 2017 - 21:38:07 EST


On 08/02/2017 06:28 PM, Daniel Vetter wrote:
On Wed, Aug 2, 2017 at 6:37 PM, David Lechner <david@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 08/02/2017 04:46 AM, Daniel Vetter wrote:

On Tue, Aug 01, 2017 at 10:26:41AM -0500, David Lechner wrote:

The fbdev subsystem has a place for physical dimensions (width and height
in mm) that is readable by userspace. Since DRM also knows these
dimensions, pass this information to the fbdev device.

Signed-off-by: David Lechner <david@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>


Still in the wrong function. Also please add some notation about what you
changed when resubmitting a patch (it took me a while to remember that I
replied to you already). That makes patch reviewing more efficient.


Sorry for being so dense. :-/

I did read your first reply at least 10 times. All of the terminology is
foreign to me, but after sleeping on it a few days, I think it is slowly
soaking into my brain.

No problem, the code is fairly convoluted. One more question on your
v3: From reading fbdev code I don't see any place that overwrites the
physical dimensions except the fill_var helper function (which is
called deep down from register_framebuffer). If we entirely remove the
var.width/height assignments from that (including the -1 default) and
move all of it into setup_crtcs, would that work?


I tried that, but in my case, drm_setup_crtcs() is only called once before the fbdev is allocated. So, I got a kernel oops from dereferencing a null pointer, which is why there is a null check for fb_helper->fbdev as part of the if statement I added there. Since drm_setup_crtcs() is not called again, the var.width and height are never set.

I also noticed that there is another similar workaround/code duplication for the framebuffer not being allocated in the first call to drm_setup_crtcs() seen at the end of drm_fb_helper_single_fb_probe().


I kinda don't like have the same logic in 2 completely different
places, once for driver load and once for hotplug handling. That tends
to cause bugs (because then no one bothers to test hotplug handling or
the boot-up case properly).


Would it be possible to split drm_setup_crtcs() into two functions, a top half and a bottom half. During init (pseudo-code)...

drm_begin_setup_crtcs()
drm_fb_helper_single_fb_probe()
drm_finish_setup_crtcs()

and during hotplug event, just...

drm_begin_setup_crtcs()
drm_finish_crtcs_bottom_half()

I think it could solve both cases.