Re: Serial ATA (SATA) on Linux status report

[Zoltan Boszormenyi <zboszor@freemail.hu>]

> Promise TX2/TX4/SX4
> -------------------
> Summary: Per-host queues on all controllers. Full SATA control
> including hotplug and PM on all but one controller.
> 
> libata TX2/TX4 driver status: Production, but see issue #5.
> 
> libata SX4 driver status: Production, but see issue #6.
> 
> 
> Issue #5: Some boards appear to have PATA as well as SATA ports. PATA
> is not currently supported, and no plans have yet been made to rectify
> this. Ideally drivers/ide would drive PATA, but if they are the same
> PCI device, that would not be feasible.

$ /sbin/lspci
...
00:0d.0 RAID bus controller: Promise Technology, Inc.: Unknown device
3373 (rev 02)
...

This is the only Promise Tech. device shown.
Here is the more detailed info about this, look at Region 1,
and compare the VIA IDE controller below:

$ /sbin/lspci -vvv -s 00:0d.0
00:0d.0 RAID bus controller: Promise Technology, Inc.: Unknown device 
3373 (rev 02)
         Subsystem: Micro-Star International Co., Ltd.: Unknown device 702e
         Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV+ VGASnoop- 
ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B-
         Status: Cap+ 66Mhz+ UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=medium 
 >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
         Latency: 96 (1000ns min, 4500ns max), cache line size 91
         Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 17
         Region 0: I/O ports at e800 [size=64]
         Region 1: I/O ports at e400 [size=16]
         Region 2: I/O ports at e000 [size=128]
         Region 3: Memory at cffef000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
         Region 4: Memory at cffa0000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=128K]
         Capabilities: <available only to root>
$ /sbin/lspci -vvv -s 00:0f.1
00:0f.1 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. 
VT82C586A/B/VT82C686/A/B/VT823x/A/C/VT8235 PIPC Bus Master IDE (rev 06) 
(prog-if 8a [Master SecP PriP])
         Subsystem: Micro-Star International Co., Ltd.: Unknown device 7020
         Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- 
ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B-
         Status: Cap+ 66Mhz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium 
 >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
         Latency: 32
         Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 20
         Region 4: I/O ports at fc00 [size=16]
         Capabilities: <available only to root>

Could it be that Region 1 of the Promise controller contains
the PATA I/O ports? Then it could be driven with a drivers/ide
driver... Maybe common locking is needed between sata_promise.c
and a driver for it's PATA side, I don't know.

Just an idea I am willing to test if Bartolomiej and You come
up with a solution. Nudge, nudge. :-)

Best regards,
Zoltán Böszörményi