Re: [PATCH 1/7] dt-bindings: gpu: pvrsgx: add initial bindings

H. Nikolaus Schaller
2019-10-22T15:12:06Z

Hi Tony,

> Am 22.10.2019 um 17:02 schrieb Tony Lindgren <tony@atomide.com>:
>
> * H. Nikolaus Schaller <hns@goldelico.com> [191021 18:08]:
>>
>>> Am 21.10.2019 um 19:25 schrieb Tony Lindgren <tony@atomide.com>:
>>>
>>> * H. Nikolaus Schaller <hns@goldelico.com> [191021 15:46]:
>>>>> Am 21.10.2019 um 17:07 schrieb Rob Herring <robh+dt@kernel.org>:
>>>>> On Fri, Oct 18, 2019 at 1:46 PM H. Nikolaus Schaller <hns@goldelico.com> wrote:
>>>>>> +Optional properties:
>>>>>> +- timer: the timer to be used by the driver.
>>>>>
>>>>> Needs a better description and vendor prefix at least.
>>>>
>>>> I am not yet sure if it is vendor specific or if all
>>>> SGX implementations need some timer.
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Why is this needed rather than using the OS's timers?
>>>>
>>>> Because nobody understands the current (out of tree and
>>>> planned for staging) driver well enough what the timer
>>>> is doing. It is currently hard coded that some omap refer
>>>> to timer7 and others use timer11.
>>>
>>> Just configure it in the driver based on the compatible
>>> value to keep it out of the dts. It's best to stick to
>>> standard bindings.
>>
>> IMHO leads to ugly code... Since the timer is not part of
>> the SGX IPR module but one of the OMAP timers it is sort
>> of hardware connection that can be chosen a little arbitrarily.
>>
>> This is the main reason why I think adding it to a device tree
>> source so that a board that really requires to use a timer
>> for a different purpose, can reassign it. This is not possible
>> if we hard-code that into the driver by scanning for
>> compatible. In that case the driver must check board compatible
>> names...
>>
>> But if we gain a better understanding of its role in the driver
>> (does it really need a dedicated timer and for what and which
>> properties the timer must have) we can probably replace it.
>
> Well how about just leave out the timer from the binding
> for now, and just carry a patch for it until it is known
> if/why it's really needed?
>
> If it's needed, yeah I agree a timer property should be
> used.

Ok, fine. I'll split the bindings into a patch without and
keep a private patch to add this for our development tree.
Then we either need it or drop it.

>
>>>>>> +- img,cores: number of cores. Defaults to <1>.
>>>>>
>>>>> Not discoverable?
>>>>
>>>> Not sure if it is. This is probably available in undocumented
>>>> registers of the sgx.
>>>
>>> This too, and whatever non-standrd other properities
>>> you might have.
>>
>> Here it is a feature of the SGX IPR of the SoC, i.e.
>> describes that the hardware has one or two cores.
>
> Here you can have a standard dts binding by putting this
> into driver struct of_device_id match .data. Then when
> somebody figures out how to read that from the hardware,
> it can be just dropped.

Hm. How should that work? Some SoC have the sgx544 as single
core and others as dual core. This imho does not fit into
the "img,sgx544-$revision" scheme which could be matched to.

But maybe we do it the same as with the timer for the moment,
i.e. keep it in some unpublished patch set.

At the moment I have more problems understanding how the yaml
thing works. I understand and fully support the overall goal,
but it is quite difficult to get a start here. And there do not
seem to be tools or scripts to help converting from old style
text format (even if not perfect, this would be helpful) and
I have no yaml editor that helps keeping the indentation
correct. So this slows down a v2 a little bit.

BR and thanks,
Nikolaus