Re: [PATCH V5 00/13] drivers: Boot Constraint core

[Olof Johansson]

Hi,

On Thu, Dec 14, 2017 at 7:33 AM, Viresh Kumar <viresh.kumar@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hi Greg,
>
> Here is V5 of the boot constraints core based on your feedback from V4.
> Hope this looks better now :)
>
> I have tested the Hisilicon patches (again) on hikey 9660 board, IMX
> stuff was earlier tested by Sascha (Pengutronix) on i.MX6 and Qualcomm
> stuff was earlier tested by Rajendra (Qualcomm) on Dragonboard 410C
> (This required some more patches related to display driver which
> Rajendra should be sending separately later on).
>
>
> Problem statement:
>
> Some devices are powered ON by the bootloader before the bootloader
> handovers control to Linux. It maybe important for those devices to keep
> working until the time a Linux device driver probes the device and
> reconfigure its resources.
>
> A typical example of that can be the LCD controller, which is used by
> the bootloaders to show image(s) while the platform is booting into
> Linux.  The LCD controller can be using some resources, like clk,
> regulators, etc, that are shared between several devices. These shared
> resources should be configured to satisfy need of all the users.  If
> another device's (X) driver gets probed before the LCD controller driver
> in this case, then it may end up disabling or reconfiguring these
> resources to ranges satisfying the current users (only device X) and
> that can make the LCD screen unstable.
>
> Another case can be a debug serial port enabled from the bootloader.
>
> Of course we can have more complex cases where the same resource is
> getting used by two devices while the kernel boots and the order in
> which devices get probed wouldn't matter as the other device will surely
> break then.
>
> There are also cases where the resources may not be shared, but the
> kernel will disable them forcefully as no users may have appeared until
> a certain point in kernel boot. This makes sure that the resources stay
> enabled. A wide variety of constraints can be satisfied using the new
> framework.
>
> Proposed solution:
>
> This series introduces the concept of "boot-constraint", which are set
> by platform specific drivers (for now at least) at early init (like
> subsys_initcall) and the kernel will keep satisfying them until the time
> driver for such a device is probed (successfully or unsuccessfully).
> Once the driver is probed, the driver core removes the constraints set
> for the device. This series implements clk, regulator and PM domain
> constraints currently.
>
> Targeted for: v4.16
>
> Pushed here:
> git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/vireshk/linux.git boot-constraints
>
> V4->V5:
> - SPDX Licence format used.
> - arm,primecell stuff removed from boot constraint core and added a
>   helper in OF core (which already handles amba and platform devices).
> - Removed a bunch of BUG_ON(), pr_fmt(), comments.
> - Changed directory and other names from
>   boot_constraints/boot_constraint.
> - Removed serial.o file and moved the code to hikey and imx files.
> - Don't return error from dummy helper.
> - Added documentation and corresponding kernel doc comments in the code.
> - Updated MAINTAINERS.
>
> V3->V4:
> - Added support for imx, hikey and Qcom usecases.
> - Enhanced boot constraints core to make drivers code easy and handle
>   complex cases.
> - Two new patches for OF included to provide APIs to boot constraint
>   core.
> - Removed the kernel parameter patch for now.
> - Don't check return values of debugfs routines.
> - Moved the boot constraints core from drivers/base/ to drivers/.
>
> V2->V3:
> - Removed DT support as we aren't sure about how to define the bindings
>   yet.
> - Added CLK and PM domain constraint types.
> - A new directory is added for boot constraints, which will also contain
>   platform specific drivers in future.
> - Deferred devices are still supported, just that it wouldn't be called
>   from generic code anymore but platform specific code.
> - Tested on Qcom 410c dragonboard with display flash screen (Rajendra).
> - Usual renaming/commit-log-updates/etc changes done.
>
> V1->V2:
> - Add support for setting constraints for devices created from DT.
> - Allow handling deferred devices earlier then late_init.
> - Remove 'default y' line from kconfig.
> - Drop '=" after boot_constraints_disable kernel param.
> - Dropped the dummy testing patch now.
>
> --
> viresh
>
> Rajendra Nayak (1):
>   boot_constraint: Add Qualcomm display controller constraints
>
> Viresh Kumar (12):
>   of: platform: Add of_find_any_device_by_node()
>   of: platform: Make of_platform_bus_create() global
>   drivers: Add boot constraints core
>   boot_constraint: Add support for supply constraints
>   boot_constraint: Add support for clk constraints
>   boot_constraint: Add support for PM constraints
>   boot_constraint: Add debugfs support
>   boot_constraint: Manage deferrable constraints
>   boot_constraint: Add support for Hisilicon platforms
>   boot_constraint: Add support for IMX platform
>   boot_constraint: Update MAINTAINERS
>   boot_constraint: Add documentation
>
>  .../driver-api/boot-constraint/constraints.rst     |  98 +++++++
>  Documentation/driver-api/boot-constraint/index.rst |   4 +
>  Documentation/driver-api/index.rst                 |   1 +
>  MAINTAINERS                                        |   9 +
>  arch/arm/mach-imx/Kconfig                          |   1 +
>  arch/arm64/Kconfig.platforms                       |   2 +
>  drivers/Kconfig                                    |   2 +
>  drivers/Makefile                                   |   1 +
>  drivers/base/dd.c                                  |  32 ++-
>  drivers/boot_constraint/Kconfig                    |   9 +
>  drivers/boot_constraint/Makefile                   |   7 +
>  drivers/boot_constraint/clk.c                      |  70 +++++
>  drivers/boot_constraint/core.c                     | 290 +++++++++++++++++++++
>  drivers/boot_constraint/core.h                     |  47 ++++
>  drivers/boot_constraint/deferrable_dev.c           | 241 +++++++++++++++++
>  drivers/boot_constraint/hikey.c                    | 158 +++++++++++
>  drivers/boot_constraint/imx.c                      | 126 +++++++++
>  drivers/boot_constraint/pm.c                       |  28 ++
>  drivers/boot_constraint/qcom.c                     | 122 +++++++++
>  drivers/boot_constraint/supply.c                   | 104 ++++++++

The SoC-specific pieces should preferrably go under drivers/soc
instead, to reduce cross-tree dependencies when introducing new SoC
variants.

They're more related to the SoC than to the boot_constraint framework anyway.

Bikeshed: We've traditionally had really terse and precise names under
drivers/. This is the first verbose one with a _ in it. Maybe find a
shorter name or just concatenate to 'bootconstraints'? We didn't call
it remote_proc or rapid_io, etc, either. :)

-Olof