Re: [PATCH v2 3/8] Add Advantech EIO Hardware Monitor driver

[Guenter Roeck <linux@roeck-us.net>]

On 7/16/26 01:10, Ramiro Manuel Silva Oliveira wrote:
>> On 7/14/26 08:54, Ramiro Oliveira wrote:
>>> This driver controls the Hardware Monitor block of the Advantech EIO chip.
>>>
>>> There is a separate driver for the thermal device driver since it's a
>>> use case we support currently, but if it's really necessary we can
>>> move it to the same driver.
>>>
>>> Signed-off-by: Ramiro Oliveira <ramiro.oliveira@advantech.com>
>>
>> Normally there would be a hwmon driver instantiating the thermal zone(s)
>> using HWMON_C_REGISTER_TZ. If the driver actively controls thermal zones
>> since it also handles fans, that would be instantiated from the hwmon driver.
>>
>> Since you have both thermal temperature and thermal fan drivers, I am very
>> concerned that there is functionality overlap andor even conflicts. You should
>> drop this driver and configure the thermal temperature driver to instantiate a
>> hwmon device from it if so desired.
> 
> But this hwmon driver doesn't control any setting, it just displays values. Fan
> and Thermal Zone control is handled in the thermal fan and thermal
> temperature drivers.
> 
> Also this hwmon shows values not related to temperature, like voltage,
> current and intrusion.
> 
> Would it be ok if I kept the HW Monitor since it only displays values, and if
> not can I keep it to show the other non-temperature values?
> 

All other similar drivers implement a hwmon driver and instantiate the thermal
subsystem from it. You decided to implement thermal drivers. You should only
have thermal or hwmon drivers, not both.

Having both would essentially implement two drivers with overlapping functionality.
Since you decided that you want separate thermal drivers, and two of them, you
should drop the hwmon driver.

Guenter