Re: [PATCH 2/4] pwm: pca9685: remove ALL_LED PWM channel

[Clemens Gruber]

On Mon, Mar 30, 2020 at 05:40:36PM +0200, Thierry Reding wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 30, 2020 at 03:34:50PM +0200, Clemens Gruber wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > On Mon, Mar 30, 2020 at 03:07:57PM +0200, Thierry Reding wrote:
> > > On Wed, Feb 26, 2020 at 02:52:27PM +0100, Matthias Schiffer wrote:
> > > > The interaction of the ALL_LED PWM channel with the other channels was
> > > > not well-defined. As the ALL_LED feature does not seem very useful and
> > > > it was making the code significantly more complex, simply remove it.
> > > > 
> > > > Signed-off-by: Matthias Schiffer <matthias.schiffer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > > > ---
> > > >  drivers/pwm/pwm-pca9685.c | 115 ++++++--------------------------------
> > > >  1 file changed, 17 insertions(+), 98 deletions(-)
> > > 
> > > Applied, thanks.
> > > 
> > > Thierry
> > 
> > I was not reading the mailing list in the last weeks, so I only saw the
> > patch today.
> > 
> > We are using the ALL_LED channel in production to reduce the delay when
> > all 16 PWM outputs need to be set to the same duty cycle.
> > 
> > I am not sure it is a good idea to remove this feature.
> 
> Can you specify what platform this is and where the code is that does
> this. I can't really find any device tree users of this and I don't know
> if there's a good way to find out what other users there are, but this
> isn't the first time this driver has created confusion, so please help
> collect some more information about it's use so we can avoid this in the
> future.

The platform is ARM, it's a custom board with an NXP i.MX6. The device
tree is not upstreamed. As there are multiple companies involved
in changes to this driver, I assume that it is in use, even though there
are no in-tree users.
Also: As you can set the ALL channel from userspace, it will be very
difficult to find out how often the ALL feature is being used somewhere.

> 
> I'll back out this particular patch since you're using it. Can you give
> the other three patches a try to see if they work for you?

Thanks! I saw your other mail. Patch 1 looks good to me. I will look at
the new version of patches 3 and 4 and test them when they appear on the
list.

Clemens