Re: [patch] Make MMCONFIG space (extended PCI config space) a driver opt-in issue

Linus Torvalds
2007-12-22T18:07:20Z

On Sat, 22 Dec 2007, Arjan van de Ven wrote:

> On Sat, 22 Dec 2007 09:20:06 -0500
> Jeff Garzik <jeff@garzik.org> wrote:
> >
> > Yuck. And, Linus is just being silly. Wait a year then turn on
> > MMCONFIG :) It took PCI MSI a while to mature, but is finally
> > getting there.

That _really_ doesn't work.

Old machines don't go away. We can't just say "wait a year and turn on
MMCONFIG", because all the broken machines WILL STILL EXIST.

> Do you hate the name or the concept? I'm certainly open for a better name....

Just make it so. The name is fine, the concept is unavoidable. The people
who complain are whiners that haven't ever had to deal with the fact that
there are broken machines around.

For example, right now Jeff never sees the problem, because when MMCONFIG
doesn't work, it's never his problem - nothing in the machine works. But
if he has to add a "pci_enable_mmconfig()" to the drivers he maintains, he
sees it as a _new_ problem, so he obviously thinks it's stupid: he was
never impacted by the issues it fixed!

So it's natural for Jeff to not like it, but that doesn't make Jeff right
in this case. It just means that Jeff never had to worry about it before,
because as long as MMCONFIG wasn't per-driver, the problems it caused were
never *his* problems. But that doesn't make them less of a problem.

Linus