Re: [PATCH v8 4/8] i2c: Introduce OF component probe function

[Andy Shevchenko <andriy.shevchenko@linux.intel.com>]

On Mon, Oct 14, 2024 at 11:53:47AM +0800, Chen-Yu Tsai wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 10, 2024 at 11:16 PM Andy Shevchenko
> <andriy.shevchenko@linux.intel.com> wrote:
> > On Tue, Oct 08, 2024 at 03:34:23PM +0800, Chen-Yu Tsai wrote:

...

> > Fresh reading of the commit message make me think why the firmware or
> > bootloader on such a device can't form a dynamic OF (overlay?) to fulfill
> > the need?
> 
> The firmware / bootloader on existing devices are practically not upgradable.
> On the other hand, the kernel is very easy to upgrade or swap out.
> 
> For said shipped devices, there is also nothing to key the detection
> off of besides actually powering things up and doing I2C transfers,
> which takes time that the firmware has little to spare. We (ChromeOS)
> require that the bootloader jump into the kernel within 1 second of
> power on. That includes DRAM calibration, whatever essential hardware
> initialization, and loading and uncompressing the kernel. Anything
> non-essential that can be done in the kernel is going to get deferred
> to the kernel.
> 
> Also, due to project timelines oftentimes the devices are shipped with a
> downstream kernel with downstream device trees. We don't want to tie the
> firmware too tightly to the device tree in case the downstream stuff gets
> reworked when upstreamed.

Okay, I was always under impression that DT has at least one nice feature in
comparison with ACPI that it can be replaced / updated in much quicker /
independent manner. What you are telling seems like the same issue that
ACPI-based platforms have. However, there they usually put all possible devices
into DSDT and firmware enables them via run-time (ACPI) variables. Are you
trying to implement something similar here?

...

> > Another question is that we have the autoprobing mechanism for I2C for ages,
> > why that one can't be (re-)used / extended to cover these cases?
> 
> I haven't looked into it very much, but a quick read of
> Documentation/i2c/instantiating-devices.rst suggests that it's solving
> a different problem?
> 
> In our case, we know that it is just one of a handful of possible
> devices that we already described in the device tree. We don't need
> to probe the full address range nor the full range of drivers. We
> already have a hacky workaround in place, but that mangles the
> device tree in a way that doesn't really match the hardware.
> 
> The components that we are handling don't seem to have any hardware
> ID register, nor do their drivers implement the .detect() callback.
> There's also power sequencing (regulator and GPIO lines) and interrupt
> lines from the device tree that need to be handled, something that is
> missing in the autoprobe path.
> 
> Based on the above I don't think the existing autoprobe is a good fit.
> Trying to shoehorn it in is likely going to be a mess.
> 
> Doug's original cover letter describes the problem in more detail,
> including why we think this should be done in the kernel, not the
> firmware:
> https://lore.kernel.org/all/20230921102420.RFC.1.I9dddd99ccdca175e3ceb1b9fa1827df0928c5101@changeid/

Perhaps it needs to be summarised to cover at least this question along with
the above?

-- 
With Best Regards,
Andy Shevchenko