[RFC 1/6] drm: Add top level Kconfig option for DRM fbdev emulation

[Archit Taneja]

On 03/10/2015 05:47 PM, Daniel Vetter wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 10, 2015 at 03:52:41PM +0530, Archit Taneja wrote:
>> On 03/10/2015 03:35 PM, Daniel Vetter wrote:
>>> On Tue, Mar 10, 2015 at 03:22:49PM +0530, Archit Taneja wrote:
>>>> On 03/10/2015 03:17 PM, Daniel Vetter wrote:
>>>>> On Tue, Mar 10, 2015 at 03:11:28PM +0530, Archit Taneja wrote:
>>>>>> diff --git a/drivers/gpu/drm/Kconfig b/drivers/gpu/drm/Kconfig
>>>>>> index 151a050..38f83a0 100644
>>>>>> --- a/drivers/gpu/drm/Kconfig
>>>>>> +++ b/drivers/gpu/drm/Kconfig
>>>>>> @@ -40,6 +40,24 @@ config DRM_KMS_FB_HELPER
>>>>>>   	help
>>>>>>   	  FBDEV helpers for KMS drivers.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> +config DRM_FBDEV_EMULATION
>>>>>> +	bool "Enable legacy fbdev support for your modesetting driver"
>>>>>> +	depends on DRM
>>>>>> +	select DRM_KMS_HELPER
>>>>>> +	select DRM_KMS_FB_HELPER
>>>>>> +	select FB_SYS_FILLRECT
>>>>>> +	select FB_SYS_COPYAREA
>>>>>> +	select FB_SYS_IMAGEBLIT
>>>>>> +	select FB_SYS_FOPS
>>>>>> +	select FB_CFB_FILLRECT
>>>>>> +	select FB_CFB_COPYAREA
>>>>>> +	select FB_CFB_IMAGEBLIT
>>>>>> +	default y
>>>>>> +	help
>>>>>> +	  Choose this option if you have a need for the legacy fbdev
>>>>>> +	  support. Note that this support also provide the linux console
>>>>>> +	  support on top of your modesetting driver.
>>>>>
>>>>> Maybe clarify that for linux console support you also need
>>>>> CONFIG_FRAMEBUFFER_CONSOLE? fbdev alone isn't enough.
>>>>
>>>> DRM_KMS_FB_HELPER selects that for us, right?
>>>
>>> Hm right I've missed that. Reminds me that you need one more patch at the
>>> end to remove all the various select DRM_KMS_FB_HELPER from all drm
>>> drivers. Otherwise this knob here won't work by default if you e.g. select
>>> radeon. In general we can't mix explicit options with menu entries with a
>>> select.
>>
>> I was trying that out. Removing DRM_KMS_FB_HELPER and having
>> DRM_FBDEV_EMULATION disabled breaks drivers which use FB stuff internally in
>> their respective xyz_fbdev.c files.
>
> But with the stubbed out functions that should work, right? Why doesn't
> it?

There are still calls to functions from fb core like fb_set_suspend and 
register_framebuffer which aren't covered by the drm fb helper functions.

>
>> Are you saying that we should remove DRM_KMS_FB_HELPER for such drivers and
>> replace them with 'select DRM_FBDEV_EMULATION'?
>>
>> Another option would be to provide #ifdef DRM_FBDEV_EMULATION wrap-arounds
>> for fb related function calls/declarations in each driver, something that's
>> already done for i915 and msm drivers.
>
> The problem with the patch as-is the massive amounts of selects the FB
> helper still has. We need to get rid of them so that when you disable
> fbdev emulation you can indeed disable fbcon and the entire fbdev
> subsystem. I've thought that remove the hidden symbol DRM_KMS_FB_HELPER
> and moving all the selects to DRM_FBDEV_EMULATION should work out? If that
> doesn't work we need to look again how to better stub things out I think.

That's true. Also, as Jani pointed out, maybe it isn't the best idea to 
make every kms driver select DRM_FBDEV_EMULATION?

Maybe the drivers that are currently built with fbdev emulation by 
default can add a 'depends on DRM_FBDEV_EMULATION'? Since the config 
defaults to y, the drivers should run as is. Later, we could take up 
each driver and build the fb stuff only when DRM_FBDEV_EMULATION is set, 
like how we do for i915 and msm?

Archit

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