Re: [PATCH net-next 1/2] net: pcs: xpcs: enable skip xPCS soft reset

[Florian Fainelli]

On 8/10/2021 4:55 PM, Wong Vee Khee wrote:
> Hi Andrew,
> On Mon, Aug 09, 2021 at 03:35:09PM +0200, Andrew Lunn wrote:
> > On Mon, Aug 09, 2021 at 06:22:28PM +0800, Wong Vee Khee wrote:
> > > From: Michael Sit Wei Hong <michael.wei.hong.sit@xxxxxxxxx>
> > >
> > > Unlike any other platforms, Intel AlderLake-S uses Synopsys SerDes where
> > > all the SerDes PLL configurations are controlled by the xPCS at the BIOS
> > > level. If the driver perform a xPCS soft reset on initialization, these
> > > settings will be switched back to the power on reset values.
> > >
> > > This changes the xpcs_create function to take in an additional argument
> > > to check if the platform request to skip xPCS soft reset during device
> > > initialization.
> >
> > Why not just call into the BIOS and ask it to configure the SERDES?
> > Isn't that what ACPI is all about, hiding the details from the OS? Or
> > did the BIOS writers not add a control method to do this?
> >
> >      Andrew
>
> BIOS does configured the SerDes. The problem here is that all the
> configurations done by BIOS are being reset at xpcs_create().
>
> We would want user of the pcs-xpcs module (stmmac, sja1105) to have
> control whether or not we need to perform to the soft reset in the
> xpcs_create() call.

I understood Andrew's response as suggesting to introduce the ability 
for xpcs_create() to make a BIOS call which would configure the SerDes 
after xpcs_soft_reset(). That way the current xpcs_create() signature 
would remain the same, but you could easily hook any post-reset 
initialization by making an appropriate BIOS call.
--
Florian