Re: [PATCH 02/13] driver-core: defer all probes until late_initcall

Rafael J. Wysocki
2015-06-23T23:48:32Z

On Tuesday, June 23, 2015 04:37:57 PM Tomeu Vizoso wrote:
> On 23 June 2015 at 16:51, Rafael J. Wysocki <rjw@rjwysocki.net> wrote:
> > On Tuesday, June 23, 2015 04:17:29 PM Tomeu Vizoso wrote:
> >> On 23 June 2015 at 16:37, Rafael J. Wysocki <rjw@rjwysocki.net> wrote:
> >> > On Monday, June 22, 2015 07:07:08 PM Rob Herring wrote:
> >> >> On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 6:20 PM, Rafael J. Wysocki <rjw@rjwysocki.net> wrote:
> >> >> > On Friday, June 19, 2015 03:36:46 PM Tomeu Vizoso wrote:
> >> >> >> On 18 June 2015 at 23:50, Rafael J. Wysocki <rjw@rjwysocki.net> wrote:
> >> >> >> > On Wednesday, June 17, 2015 03:42:12 PM Tomeu Vizoso wrote:
> >> >> >> >> To decrease the chances of devices deferring their probes because of
> >> >> >> >> dependencies not having probed yet because of their drivers not having
> >> >> >> >> registered yet, delay all probing until the late initcall level.
> >> >> >> >>
> >> >> >> >> This will allow us to avoid deferred probes completely later by probing
> >> >> >> >> dependencies on demand, or by probing them in dependency order.
> >> >> >> >>
> >> >> >> >> Signed-off-by: Tomeu Vizoso <tomeu.vizoso@collabora.com>
> >> >> >> >> ---
> >> >> >> >> drivers/base/dd.c | 8 +++++++-
> >> >> >> >> 1 file changed, 7 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
> >> >> >> >>
> >> >> >> >> diff --git a/drivers/base/dd.c b/drivers/base/dd.c
> >> >> >> >> index a638bbb..18438aa 100644
> >> >> >> >> --- a/drivers/base/dd.c
> >> >> >> >> +++ b/drivers/base/dd.c
> >> >> >> >> @@ -407,6 +407,12 @@ int driver_probe_device(struct device_driver *drv, struct device *dev)
> >> >> >> >> if (!device_is_registered(dev))
> >> >> >> >> return -ENODEV;
> >> >> >> >>
> >> >> >> >> + /* Defer all probes until we start processing the queue */
> >> >> >> >> + if (!driver_deferred_probe_enable) {
> >> >> >> >> + driver_deferred_probe_add(dev);
> >> >> >> >
> >> >> >> > Do I think correctly that this will effectively force everybody to use deferred
> >> >> >> > probing?
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >> Guess it depends on the meaning of "using deferred probing". It will
> >> >> >> defer the probe of the first device to late_initcall (which will
> >> >> >> happen much earlier in time than before), but afterwards all built-in
> >> >> >> drivers will be available and depending on the order in which we try
> >> >> >> to probe devices, none may actually ask to defer its probe.
> >> >> >
> >> >> > So this will break things like the PNP system driver which relies on probing
> >> >> > stuff at the fs_initcall stage for correctness. It may also break other
> >> >> > things with similar assumptions.
> >> >>
> >> >> Yes, but I think that this can be done for only OF based devices
> >> >> rather than globally for all platform devices and solve that problem.
> >> >> Matching is already dependent of the type of device.
> >> >
> >> > Well, the current patch is not OF-only, though.
> >>
> >> Yeah, I'm currently looking at only delaying probing of devices
> >> created from OF data.
> >
> > I'm not sure if tying it hard to OF is not too restrictive.
> >
> > Maybe we can use some general opt-in mechanism that OF will just always use?
>
> Would it help if buses called fwnode_driver_match_device() instead of
> the existing OF and ACPI variants and we did it in there?

Probably it would, but I'd need to see the actual patch. :-)

> I'm still not sure of how fwnode is used in machines with ACPI.

I'm not sure what you mean. On ACPI systems struct fwnode_handle is embedded
in struct acpi_device and there is a pointer from struct device to that field
in the companion ACPI device object.

> But that would be quite a bit of work that I think should be left for
> a later series because otherwise this one is going to balloon in size
> really quickly.

Well, I'd prefer not to leave anything to a "later series" that may never be
submitted ...

> > In fact, we have a similar problem in ACPI where we have the _DEP object which
> > is used by firmware to describe dependencies between devices.
>
> I would expect that classes/subsystems would be able to use that data
> in their class.get_dependencies() callback, if the passed fwnode is a
> ACPI node.

Yes, something like that.

But the point is that this really isn't OF-specific.

Thanks,
Rafael