[PATCH 2/2] drm/doc: Update docs about device instance setup

[David Herrmann]

Hi

On Mon, Aug 10, 2015 at 4:30 PM, Daniel Vetter <daniel at ffwll.ch> wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 10, 2015 at 02:34:18PM +0200, Thierry Reding wrote:
>> On Mon, Aug 10, 2015 at 02:07:49PM +0200, Daniel Vetter wrote:
>> > On Mon, Aug 10, 2015 at 01:59:07PM +0200, Thierry Reding wrote:
>> > > On Mon, Aug 10, 2015 at 11:55:38AM +0200, Daniel Vetter wrote:
>> > > > ->load is depracated, bus functionst are deprecated and everyone
>> > > > should use drm_dev_alloc&register.
>> > >
>> > > Why would you want to deprecated ->load()? Even if you use
>> > > drm_dev_alloc() and drm_dev_register(), there's still use for ->load()
>> > > because it gives you the subsystem-level initialization entry point.
>> >
>> > ->load is called after the drm /dev node is registered and hence you can't
>> > really do any driver setup in there without risking races. We paper over
>> > that using drm_global_mutex, but that doesn't work for any other
>> > driver/userspace interface like sysfs/debugfs because of deadlocks.
>> >
>> > And we can't just reorder ->load to happen before the /dev nodes are
>> > registered because a lot of drivers would fall over if we do that.
>> >
>> > This is typical midlayer fail where the core calls into the driver instead
>> > of the other way round.
>>
>> Okay, but then if we're going to deprecate ->load(), I think we should
>> also come up with an upgrade plan. As it is, this just says that users
>> shouldn't do ->load(), but it doesn't tell them what to do instead.
>>
>> Would the proper procedure be to fix drivers so that ->load() can be
>> called between drm_dev_alloc() and drm_dev_register()? I suppose we
>> could add some sort of (temporary) flag for drivers to signal this and
>> then have drm_dev_register() call ->load() at the right time. If drivers
>> don't support it, we can keep what we have.
>>
>> That, of course, doesn't get rid of the midlayer, so perhaps a better
>> way forward would be to tell driver writers that they should be doing
>> subsystem-level setup between drm_dev_alloc() and drm_dev_register().
>
> That's exactly what this patch tries to accomplish by updating the
> kerneldoc and docbook. New sequence should be
>
> device_probe_callback_or_whatever()
> {
>         drm_dev_alloc();
>
>         ... driver init code ...
>
>         drm_dev_register();
>
>         return 0;
> }

_Yes_!

Acked-by: David Herrmann <dh.herrmann at gmail.com>

Thanks
David