Re: IEEE1588 Precision Time Protocol (PTP) driver for AMCC 405EZ

[Robert Schwebel <r.schwebel@pengutronix.de>]

On Mon, Apr 30, 2007 at 04:41:32PM +0200, Stefan Roese wrote:
> I'm in the stage of integrating an IEEE1588 PTP driver for the AMCC 405EZ PPC 
> and looking for the correct location to place this driver in the Linux source 
> tree. The driver is a character-driver that enables the user space 
> applications to configure the time stamping unit and to read/write the 
> timestamps.

Could you elaborate your overall concept for this class of drivers? I
assume it makes no sense to write an IEEE1588 driver especially for the
AMCC chip, because there will probably be a need to support it on any
capable hardware; for example the netX has 1588 support for precise
timestamping as well and so do others.

I'd prefer to discuss the needed functionality first, then find a common
set of lowlevel APIs and move most of the IEEE1588 related stuff into
userspace. It might also be a good idea to involve the RTnet in this
discusson.

> Is "drivers/net/ptp" or "drivers/net/ieee1588" a good solution? Or
> should it go to "drivers/char/ptp" because of the chrdev nature of the
> driver?

Please start with discussing the concept, not the names. It might end
being a part of the network drivers, without any special directory.

Robert
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