Re: sata AHCI controller over non-PCI bus

[Robert Hancock <hancockrwd@gmail.com>]

On 08/16/2009 06:53 AM, Jeff Garzik wrote:
> Subbrathnam, Swaminathan wrote:
>> Jeff,
>> From the below link (from Sergei) it seems that you have already
>> re-factored the AHCI implementation dependency on PCI. I would like to
>> add support for the OMAPL138 SATA on top of your changes. That would
>> be the ideal way forward for me.
>>
>> Have the ahci re-factoring changes queued for mainline merge already?
>> I just joined the list and hence do not know the status.
>>
>> Sergei,
>> Appreciate the response.
>
> I store the refactoring in git, on the "libahci" branch of
> git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/jgarzik/libata-dev.git
>
> Unfortunately, I am having second thoughts about an element of the
> current design. With current Linux distributions, they do not appear to
> deal well with the multi-module dependency libata -> libahci -> ahci. If
> I had to guess, I would say that mkinitrd creation tools only look at
> one tree level's worth of kernel module dependencies.
>
> Thus, ahci would wind up -not- in initrd, in a libahci solution.
>
> I am thinking that I will just add Marvell and ATP support to ahci.c,
> and let someone else deal with libahci separation -- which is still needed.
>
> At this point, I would rather get Marvell/ATP support into users' hands,
> rather than wait for distros to catch up to modern technology.

If that's the case it seems clearly a mkinitrd bug. What distribution 
were you seeing this behavior on?