Re: Marvel IDE 88SE6101 2.4.XX support

Willy Tarreau
2008-09-05T04:03:45Z

Hi Alan,

On Thu, Sep 04, 2008 at 07:36:25PM +0100, Alan Cox wrote:
> On Thu, 4 Sep 2008 21:26:12 +0300 (EEST)
> ivaylo@bglans.net wrote:
>
> >
> > Another one small patch to support Marvel IDE 88SE6101 controler. I have
> > one on Intel DG33BU motherboard. It is detect as
> > 02:00.0 IDE interface: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88SE6101 single-port
> > PATA133 interface (rev b2)
>
> Its a pretty generic device - see drivers/ata/pata_marvell.c so IDE
> generic will probably do roughly the right things. The pata_marvell
> driver documents how to do cable detect, which you may want to add and
> make it its own driver.

Indeed, your driver is clear enough to serve as a doc. Looking at
ata_piix.c in 2.4, I see that the libata core has evolved a lot,
but backporting your work should not be hard at all. Among other
things, the driver needs to set ap->cbl itself during reset, for
instance.

However, I wonder if it's really worth doing it if the IDE generic
driver already works. The PATA port on such motherboards today is
mostly used by CD/DVD, and I think that even if we limit ourselves
to 40-pin, it's not dramatic (all my IDE CD drives have always been
running that way for ages).

Or maybe this would be more interesting for other chips of the same
family ?

Ivaylo, if you're interested in trying to backport pata_marvell.c
from 2.6 to 2.4, that's fine for me, just inform me so that I know
I'm waiting for you. Otherwise I can merge your IDE generic patch.
In this case, could you repost your patch after fixing the name
"MARVEL" in the PCI IDs (=> "MARVELL") ?

Thanks,
Willy