Re: [PATCH 0/4] usb: Use notifier for linking Type C ports.

[Prashant Malani]

Hi Heikki,

Thanks for taking a look at the series.

On Tue, Nov 30, 2021 at 3:03 AM Heikki Krogerus
<heikki.krogerus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> Hi Prashant,
>
> On Fri, Nov 26, 2021 at 11:40:49AM +0200, Heikki Krogerus wrote:
> > On Wed, Nov 24, 2021 at 03:10:06PM -0800, Prashant Malani wrote:
> > > This series resolves the cyclic dependency error which was introduced by
> > > commit 63cd78617350 ("usb: Link the ports to the connectors they are
> > > attached to") which lead to it being reverted. The approach here is to
> > > use a notifier to link a new Type C port to pre-existing USB ports
> > > instead of calling an iterator of usb ports from the Type C connector
> > > class. This allows commit 63cd78617350 ("usb: Link the ports to the
> > > connectors they are attached to") to then be submitted without any
> > > depmod cyclic dependency error.
> > >
> > > The final patch removes the usb port iterator since it is no longer
> > > needed.
> >
> > This is not enough. Build the Type-C Class as a module and the USB bus
> > statically, and the links will not get created.
> >

I see. I suppose it is academic now (given your follow up email about converting
port-mapper to component framework), but would reversing where the
notifier block is i.e,
have usbcore expose the notifier registration API instead of
typec-class, resolve
the issue? That would mean the dependency is the same as what it is right now
in the code, right (typec -> usbcore)

> > I'm not sure you actually achieve much with this series, and I'm not
> > sure this approach will ever fully solve the problem. As long as we
> > have to declare API, we will have the circular dependency issue on our
> > hands. But there are ways to avoid that.
> >
> > There is for example the component framework (drivers/base/component.c)
> > that I've been thinking about using here. In this case it would work
> > so that you declare the USB Type-C part as your aggregate driver, and
> > everything that is connected to it (so USB ports, DisplayPorts, TBT,
> > etc.) would then just declare themselves as general components. Could
> > you take a look at that?
>
> I'm preparing a patch where I store all _PLDs in the ACPI tables, and
> create list of devices that share it. I can convert port-mapper.c to
> it and the component framework while at it.

Great, thanks. We can help with testing once you have a patch series
to share.

Best regards,

-Prashant