[patch 1/5] Staging: VME Framework for the Linux Kernel

[Martyn Welch]

Hi Emilio,

Emilio G. Cota wrote:
> A few comments after a quick glance, will need to dig deeper
> though:
> - semaphores? isn't it screaming for mutexes?
>   

The semaphores are initialized in mutex mode.

> - some function signatures (get_whatever) pass too many
>   pointers; it's rather ugly. Passing a pointer to an
>   appropriate struct seems a better solution.
>   

When implementing these functions it seemed like a simpler option to 
pass the parameters rather than defining yet another structure and using 
it for a single call. If the *_get functions are changed then the *_set 
functions should also be changed for consistency. I'm not overly 
bothered either way - if the consensus is that a structure would be 
better then we can go with a structure.

> - vme_alloc_consistent looks pretty fishy; why don't you pass
>   that responsibility to the specific master? There you obviously
>   know if you're bridging over PCI or whatever. Or even better;
>   why is this needed at all?
>   

In the model I have chosen it is up to the VME device driver to create 
buffers rather than the VME bridge drivers. After all it is the device 
drivers for the specific hardware found on the VME bus that knows what 
it is going to do with these buffers. This method is provided as a 
helper. It ensures that a VME device driver (not to be confused with the 
VME bridge driver) is able to allocate a buffer suitable for utilizing 
the DMA engines found in the bridge or indeed to be mapped onto VME 
though a slave window without explicitly knowing which VME bridge is 
being used.

Master windows don't require a contiguous buffer, are you referring to 
something else when you say master?

> - Please explain me what all the DMA functions do; are they
>   meant to be used by master or slaves?
>   
The TODO file (drivers/staging/vme/TODO) contains a description of the 
current API including the DMA functions, does that provide enough of a 
description?

I am not aware of a VME bridge where the DMA controllers are 
specifically linked to the master or slave windows, they operate 
independently of either though during DMA operation are acting as bus 
master. In the tsi-148 the DMA transfers can use PCI space both as a 
source and destination, so I guess you could use them to transfer data 
into the slave buffer. Other chipsets, such as the ca91c142 can't do 
this, the DMA engines can only transfer PCI-to-VME or VME-to_PCI.

> Have a look at the interface for slaves we've got for our tsi148
> driver, available at:
> http://repo.or.cz/w/tsi148vmebridge.git
>
> /* API for new drivers */
> extern int vme_request_irq(unsigned int, int (*)(void *),
>                            void *, const char *);
> extern int vme_free_irq(unsigned int );
> extern int vme_generate_interrupt(int, int, signed long);
> extern struct vme_mapping* find_vme_mapping_from_addr(unsigned);
> extern int vme_get_window_attr(struct vme_mapping *);
> extern int vme_create_window(struct vme_mapping *);
> extern int vme_destroy_window(int);
> extern int vme_find_mapping(struct vme_mapping *, int);
> extern int vme_release_mapping(struct vme_mapping *, int);
> extern int vme_do_dma(struct vme_dma *);
> extern int vme_bus_error_check(int);
>
> That's pretty thin and it covers our slaves' needs. Do you see
> anything missing there?
>   

This interface, especially struct vme_mapping seems to have been written 
solely for the tsi-148 bridge. The API I have defined aims to provide a 
consistent API across multiple VME bridges. Whilst this API clearly 
works for you with the tsi-148 I am unsure how suitable it will be for 
other bridge chips.

The API I have proposed is designed to support more than just the tsi148 
chipset. Have you thought about how the above API will be supported on 
other VME bridges?

> For masters there's no interface there because it was the
> master's driver who directly provided these calls to slaves.
> I had it in my to-do list to split that from the tsi148, in
> the same fashion as you've done with this work.
>
> - Note above the interrupt handler; simply needs the cookie. Also,
>   shouldn't your vme_request_irq() just require the IRQ vector?
>   

No. I believe that you are using the term IRQ vector where we would use 
the term status ID, the value which is returned from an IACK cycle. Your 
interrupt handling code assigns a single interrupt handler to all 
interrupt levels, purely using the interrupt vector/status ID to 
determine which interrupt handler will be used. This adds an artificial 
limitation and would not work in some instances that we have seen. Our 
framework provides the ability to attach an interrupt handler to each 
combination of IRQ level and Status ID/vector.

> - I'd like to see the whole picture, or 'vertical slice', i.e.
>   the bus interface + a master + a slave driver. How would
>   the slave's driver get the addresses and sizes of the mappings,
>   interrupt lines, etc. for each of the devices it controls?
>   For the time being we quickly hacked an xml-based scheme to get
>   this info upon installation, but it's clearly not suitable
>   for mainline.
>   
I have written a test driver for a very old slave card we had lying 
around. In that case we used module parameters to determine the location 
of the device on the bus (it used a fixed VME address space). In this 
instance the interrupt level and ID could be configured in the registers 
available in the VME address space, hence I added module parameters to 
allow these to be configured. In this respect configuration of VME 
devices is very similar to ISA devices - neither of the buses has 
supported discovery mechanism from the outset and thus old cards. I 
therefore implemented a mechanism similar to how I believe ISA 
approaches this.

The framework that I have proposed aims to provide a consistent API to 
manage allowing the resources provided by the VME bridges to be managed 
in as a consistent a manner as possible. I believe it is up to the 
device drivers for the devices found on the VME bus to determine the 
best way to configure this as it is not provided by the VME specifications.

For using the VME bus for communication between two SBCs, I think we 
could use the CRCSR space to provide some information about the 
resources used on each board for say, a virtual network driver like the 
rapidIO subsystem provides. Possibly using the "device tree" stuff used 
on PowerPC, Blackfin and Sparc archs (I believe) for passing device 
layout between the firmware and kernel at boot.
> Will probably have more comments when I get some time for further
> inspection.
>
>   
Sure, np,

Martyn

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