Re: [PATCH 1/2] [IDE] Platform IDE driver (was: MMIO IDE driver)

Guennadi Liakhovetski
2007-07-25T19:37:40Z

On Wed, 25 Jul 2007, Vitaly Bordug wrote:

>
> This is now very similar to pata_platform.c, they both use
> same platform data structure and same resources.
>
> To achieve that, byte_lanes_swapping platform data variable
> and platform specified iops removed from that driver. It's fine,
> since those were never used anyway.
>
> pata_platform and ide_platform are carrying same driver names,
> to easily switch between these drivers, without need to touch
> platform code.

Why? There's a drivers/ide/arm/ide_arm.c IDe driver that some platforms
(not in the mainline) hack to access, e.g., CF cards in true-IDE mode.
About a month ago I submitted a patch to arm-linux-kernel switching that
driver to using platform-device. I got a reply, that it's not worth it now
that IDE is slowly becoming obsolete, and the pata_platform serves the
perpose perfectly well. I found this argument reasonable, I had the same
doubt, just wanted to double-check. So, why do we now need a new legacy
(a/drivers/ide/legacy/ide_platform.c) driver when a "modern" driver
exists?

Thanks
Guennadi
---
Guennadi Liakhovetski