Re: [RFC v1 0/3] driver-core: add asynch module loading support

[Greg KH <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>]

On Sun, Aug 31, 2014 at 01:14:07PM -0700, Dmitry Torokhov wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 31, 2014 at 12:31:40PM -0700, Greg KH wrote:
> > On Sun, Aug 31, 2014 at 12:24:46PM -0700, Arjan van de Ven wrote:
> > > >>before we added the current async approach the approach of async init calls was tried
> > > >>At the time, Linus hated it and he was right, it was not the right thing.
> > > >>
> > > >>What is different this time to make this the right thing to do ?
> > > >
> > > >Because otherwise drivers still have to do this, but open code it. Let's say I
> > > >have a long operations (i.e. for some touchpads it takes about 2 secs to reset
> > > >and configure it). I can offload that part into async_schedule() so it does not
> > > >stop initialization of the rest of the system (why would I want to delay
> > > >initializing of USB or storage system until touchpad is ready?) but if that
> > > >initialization fails we end up with partially bound driver and device that is
> > > >not really operable. I would very much prefer async and sync cases be the same
> > > >- if probe() fails the driver is not bound to the device.
> > > >
> > > >I think it is wrong to make async probing system-wide, but driver opt-in shoudl
> > > >be fine and right thing to do.
> > > >
> > > 
> > > I am completely fine if we make basically an async wrapper for
> > > pci_register_driver() and friends.. that would be convenient I suppose.
> > > 
> > > (but then again, in reality very few drivers take real time to init... most already
> > > do the heavy work in open(). Not all can, sure, but if you look at a bootgraph.pl
> > > graph of a typical boot it's only a few that matter).
> 
> Input devices normally can't as we need to publish their capabilities before
> users start opening them.
> 
> > > And many drivers need to register with a subsystem, and there's some ordering around that,
> > > and that's why we ended up with the async cookie stuff, so that you can do the
> > > heavy work in parallel, but order near the end at registeration-with-the-subsystem time.
> > > 
> > > But doing this on an initcall level was wrong back then, and I have yet to hear
> > > a reason why it would be right this time.
> > 
> > It's still wrong, it's not what I was thinking about when talking this
> > over with Luis and Dmitry, I think something got lost in the
> > translation...
> 
> Right, all (well almost all) I wanted is for individual drivers to declare
> their probe() functions asynchronous and driver core scheduling async attach
> and properly handle failures from it.

Yes, that's what I want as well.

Luis, care to redo the patches in this way?  It should be a lot simpler
(no messing around with init levels and linker fun...)

thanks,

greg k-h