[U-Boot] [PATCH 6/9] CACHE: nand read/write: Test if start address is aligned

[Scott Wood <scottwood@freescale.com>]

On 06/25/2012 08:16 PM, Marek Vasut wrote:
> Dear Scott Wood,
>> Note that in the case of "nand read.oob", depending on NAND page size
>> and platform, there's a good chance that you're imposing an alignment
>> restriction that is larger than the data being transferred even if the
>> user asks to read the entire OOB.
> 
> I don't think I completely follow here.

Why should I need to have 64-byte alignment for transfering a 16-byte OOB?

>> What about "nand write.yaffs2" or multi-page "nand read.raw", which deal
>> with arrays of interleaved main+spare?  With a small page NAND chip,
>> you'll need cache lines that are 16 bytes or smaller to avoid unaligned
>> transactions -- and those will bypass your front-end check (unless the
>> user is so "stupid" as to want to modify the data after a raw-read, and
>> do a raw-write of a particular page).
> 
> Ok, I think I'm very stupid now, probably since I have high fever. I'll read 
> this after I sleep. Sorry Scott, I'm sure you're rolling out a valid point, it's 
> just that I'm incapable of understanding it right now.

Probably best to wait until you're feeling better for the rest of it,
too.  Hope you get well soon.

>>>> In the specific case of NAND, how many NAND drivers use DMA at all?
>>>
>>> Many do,
>>
>> How many?  Specifically, how many that have alignment restrictions, that
>> would need to be fixed?
> 
> At least all on the ARM architecture. And more will come, since ARM is on the 
> rise.

atmel: no, doesn't use DMA
davinci: no, doesn't use DMA
kb9202: no, doesn't use DMA
kirkwood: no, doesn't use DMA
mxc: I don't think this uses DMA, but this driver scares me. :-)
mxs: Even scarier.  Looks like this one does use DMA.
omap_gpmc: no, doesn't use DMA
s3c64xx: no, doesn't use DMA
spr: no, doesn't use DMA
s3c2410: no, doesn't use DMA

If this is about not wanting to touch the mxs_nand driver again, I
sympathize. :-)

>>> it's not only nand, it's all over the place.
>>
>> This patch is about NAND.
> 
> Check the whole patchset ... and that still only covers a small part of it all.

Right, I think it's wrong elsewhere too when it's user interface, but
I'll let the relevant custodians argue those cases.

-Scott