[PATCH v3 0/2] Let userspace know when snd-hda-intel needs i915

Mauro Carvalho Chehab
2022-04-30T13:43:39Z

Currently, kernel/module annotates module dependencies when
request_symbol is used, but it doesn't cover more complex inter-driver
dependencies that are subsystem and/or driver-specific.

In the case of hdmi sound, depending on the CPU/GPU, sometimes the
snd_hda_driver can talk directly with the hardware, but sometimes, it
uses the i915 driver. When the snd_hda_driver uses i915, it should
first be unbind/rmmod, as otherwise trying to unbind/rmmod the i915
driver cause driver issues, as as reported by CI tools with different
GPU models:

https://intel-gfx-ci.01.org/tree/drm-tip/IGT_6415/fi-tgl-1115g4/igt@core_hotunplug@unbind-rebind.html
https://intel-gfx-ci.01.org/tree/drm-tip/CI_DRM_11495/bat-adlm-1/igt@i915_module_load@reload.html

In the past, just a few CPUs were doing such bindings, but this issue now
applies to all "modern" Intel CPUs that have onboard graphics, as well as
to the newer discrete GPUs.

With the discrete GPU case, the HDA controller is physically separate and
requires i915 to power on the hardware for all hardware access. In this
case, the issue is hit basicly 100% of the time.

With on-board graphics, i915 driver is needed only when the display
codec is accessed. If i915 is unbind during runtime suspend, while
snd-hda-intel is still bound, nothing bad happens, but unbinding i915
on other situations may also cause issues.

So, add support at kernel/modules to allow snd-hda drivers to properly
annotate when a dependency on a DRM driver dependencies exists,
and add a call to such new function at the snd-hda driver when it
successfully binds into the DRM driver.

This would allow userspace tools to check and properly remove the
audio driver before trying to remove or unbind the GPU driver.

It should be noticed that this series conveys the hidden module
dependencies. Other changes are needed in order to allow
removing or unbinding the i915 driver while keeping the snd-hda-intel
driver loaded/bound. With that regards, there are some discussions on
how to improve this at alsa-devel a while back:

https://mailman.alsa-project.org/pipermail/alsa-devel/2021-September/190099.html

So, future improvements on both in i915 and the audio drivers could be made.
E.g. with discrete GPUs, it's the only codec of the card, so it seems feasible
to detach the ALSA card if i915 is bound (using infra made for VGA
switcheroo), but, until these improvements are done and land in
upstream, audio drivers needs to be unbound if i915 driver goes unbind.

Yet, even if such fixes got merged, this series is still needed, as it makes
such dependencies more explicit and easier to debug.

PS.: This series was generated against next-20220428.

---

v3: minor fixes:
- fixed a checkpatch warning;
- use a single line for the new function prototype.

v2:
- the dependencies are now handled directly at try_module_get().

Mauro Carvalho Chehab (2):
module: update dependencies at try_module_get()
ALSA: hda - identify when audio is provided by a video driver

include/linux/module.h | 4 +++-
kernel/module/main.c | 33 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++--
sound/hda/hdac_component.c | 2 +-
3 files changed, 35 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)

--
2.35.1