[RFC PATCH v2 1/3] drivers/accel: define kconfig and register a new major

[Oded Gabbay]

On Mon, Nov 7, 2022 at 6:31 PM Jason Gunthorpe <jgg at nvidia.com> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Nov 07, 2022 at 05:53:55PM +0200, Oded Gabbay wrote:
> > On Mon, Nov 7, 2022 at 4:10 PM Jason Gunthorpe <jgg at nvidia.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > On Mon, Nov 07, 2022 at 04:02:01PM +0200, Oded Gabbay wrote:
> > > > On Mon, Nov 7, 2022 at 3:10 PM Jason Gunthorpe <jgg at nvidia.com> wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > On Mon, Nov 07, 2022 at 03:01:08PM +0200, Oded Gabbay wrote:
> > > > > > I don't agree with your statement that it should be "a layer over top of DRM".
> > > > > > Anything on top of DRM is a device driver.
> > > > > > Accel is not a device driver, it is a new type of drm minor / drm driver.
> > > > >
> > > > > Yeah, I still think this is not the right way, you are getting almost
> > > > > nothing from DRM and making everything more complicated in the
> > > > > process.
> > > > >
> > > > > > The only alternative imo to that is to abandon the idea of reusing
> > > > > > drm, and just make an independant accel core code.
> > > > >
> > > > > Not quite really, layer it properly and librarize parts of DRM into
> > > > > things accel can re-use so they are not intimately tied to the DRM
> > > > > struct device notion.
> > > > >
> > > > > IMHO this is much better, because accel has very little need of DRM to
> > > > > manage a struct device/cdev in the first place.
> > > > >
> > > > > Jason
> > > > I'm not following. How can an accel device be a new type of drm_minor,
> > > > if it doesn't have access to all its functions and members ?
> > >
> > > "drm_minor" is not necessary anymore. Strictly managing minor numbers
> > > lost its value years ago when /dev/ was reorganized. Just use
> > > dynamic minors fully.
> > drm minor is not just about handling minor numbers. It contains the
> > entire code to manage devices that register with drm framework (e.g.
> > supply callbacks to file operations), manage their lifecycle,
> > resources (e.g. automatic free of resources on release), sysfs,
> > debugfs, etc.
>
> This is why you are having such troubles, this is already good library
> code. You don't need DRM to wrapper debugfs APIs, for instance. We
> have devm, though maybe it is not a good idea, etc
>
> Greg already pointed out the sysfs was not being done correctly
> anyhow.
>
> I don't think DRM is improving on these core kernel services. Just use
> the normal stuff directly.
I get what you are saying but if I do all that, then how is this
subsystem related to DRM and re-using its code ? (at least at this
stage)
btw, using the basic stuff directly was my original intention, if you
remember the original accel mail thread from July/August.
And then we all decided in LPC that we shouldn't do that and instead
accel should use the DRM code and just expose a new major+minor for
the new drivers.

So, something doesn't add up...
imo, we need to choose between doing accel either as a small new
feature in drm, or as an independent subsystem.
I just don't see how I do the former without calling drm code directly
and using all its wrappers.

>
> > > > How will accel device leverage, for example, the GEM code without
> > > > being a drm_minor ?
> > >
> > > Split GEM into a library so it doesn't require that.
> > I don't see the advantage of doing that over defining accel as a new
> > type of drm minor.
>
> Making things into smaller libraries is recognized as a far better
> kernel approach than trying to make a gigantic wide midlayer that stuffs
> itself into everything. LWN called this the "midlayer mistake" and
> wrote about the pitfalls a long time ago:
>
> https://lwn.net/Articles/336262/
>
> It is exactly what you are experiencing trying to stretch a
> midlayer even further out.
>
> Jason
I'm all for breaking it down to smaller libraries, I completely agree with you.
But as you wrote above, why do I even need to use the drm wrappers for
the basic stuff ? I'll just call the kernel api directly.
And if that's the case then I don't need to rip that code out of the
heart of drm and make it a separate module.

For GEM (as an example of something less basic) it might be a
different story, but we are not there yet.

Oded