Re: cpufreq terminally broken [was Re: community PM requirements/issues and PowerOP]

[Greg KH <greg@kroah.com>]

On Mon, Sep 11, 2006 at 05:17:01PM -0700, Mark Gross wrote:
> 
> cpufreq is broken at the cpufreq_driver interface for embedded
> applications needing control over more than one control variable at a
> time.
> 
> That interface only supports setting target frequencies, and expanding it
> to set target frequencies and voltages is not possible without something
> like PowerOP.  Adding the types of parameters to cpufreq would likely
> make cpufreq a mess.  I think we would be better off with something that
> coexists with cpufreq, like the powerop patch from Eugeny.
> 
> God help you if you try to use cpufreq on a complex non-PC platform with
> multiple power and clock domains that need to be tweaked to squeeze out
> competitive battery life.
> 
> Because of the existing user base of cpufreq removing cpufreq will never
> happen.  No one supporting the PowerOP patch has never recommended
> such a thing.  However; holding back innovation because of an existing
> solution that doesn't support a large class of users seems dumb.

But you can't break the existing stuff, and it seems that some of these
proposals are doing just that. :(

thanks,

greg k-h