public inbox for linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
 help / color / mirror / Atom feed
* [PATCH 2.6.16-mm1 0/4] PCI legacy I/O port free driver (take 6)
@ 2006-03-24  5:26 Kenji Kaneshige
  2006-03-24  5:31 ` [PATCH 2.6.16-mm1 1/4] PCI legacy I/O port free driver (take 6) - Changes to generic PCI code Kenji Kaneshige
                   ` (3 more replies)
  0 siblings, 4 replies; 8+ messages in thread
From: Kenji Kaneshige @ 2006-03-24  5:26 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Greg KH; +Cc: Andrew Morton, Linux Kernel Mailing List, linux-pci

Hi Greg,

I've updated the series of patches for PCI legacy I/O port free driver
to be applied to 2.6.16-mm1. The previous version of patches conflicts
with some changes to e1000 driver. I also confirmed the updated one
can be applied to 2.6.16-git7 though I got some warnings.

I'm attaching the brief description below about what the problem I'm
trying to solve is.

Thanks,
Kenji Kaneshige


Brief Description
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I encountered a problem that some PCI devices don't work on my system
which have huge number of PCI devices.

It is mandatory for all PCI device drivers to enable the device by
calling pci_enable_device() which enables all regions probed from the
device's BARs. If pci_enable_device() failes to enable any regions
probed from BARs, it returns as error. On the large servers, I/O port
resource could not be assigned to all PCI devices because it is
limited (64KB on Intel Architecture[1]) and it would be fragmented
(I/O base register of PCI-to-PCI bridge will usually be aligned to a
4KB boundary[2]). In this case, the devices which have no I/O port
resource assigned don't work because pci_enable_device() for those
devices failes. This is what happened on my machine.
---
[1]: Some machines support 64KB I/O port space per PCI segment.
[2]: Some P2P bridges support optional 1KB aligned I/O base.

Here, there are many PCI devices that provide both I/O port and MMIO
interface, and some of those devices can be handled without using I/O
port interface. The reason why such devices provide I/O port interface
is for compatibility to legacy OSs. So this kind of devices should
work even if enough I/O port resources are not assigned. The "PCI
Local Bus Specification Revision 3.0" also mentions about this topic
(Please see p.44, "IMPLEMENTATION NOTE"). On the current linux,
unfortunately, this kind of devices don't work if I/O port resources
are not assigned, because pci_enable_device() for those devices fails.

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread

end of thread, other threads:[~2006-03-27  5:37 UTC | newest]

Thread overview: 8+ messages (download: mbox.gz follow: Atom feed
-- links below jump to the message on this page --
2006-03-24  5:26 [PATCH 2.6.16-mm1 0/4] PCI legacy I/O port free driver (take 6) Kenji Kaneshige
2006-03-24  5:31 ` [PATCH 2.6.16-mm1 1/4] PCI legacy I/O port free driver (take 6) - Changes to generic PCI code Kenji Kaneshige
2006-03-24  9:36   ` Andrew Morton
2006-03-27  5:35     ` Kenji Kaneshige
2006-03-24  5:32 ` [PATCH 2.6.16-mm1 2/4] PCI legacy I/O port free driver (take 6) - Update Documentation/pci.txt Kenji Kaneshige
2006-03-24 16:24   ` Grant Grundler
2006-03-24  5:34 ` [PATCH 2.6.16-mm1 3/4] PCI legacy I/O port free driver (take 6) - Make Intel e1000 driver legacy I/O port free Kenji Kaneshige
2006-03-24  5:36 ` [PATCH 2.6.16-mm1 4/4] PCI legacy I/O port free driver (take 6) - Make Emulex lpfc " Kenji Kaneshige

This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox