[Intel-gfx] [PATCH] drm/i915: Remove function details from device error messages

[Rodrigo Vivi]

On Mon, Jul 09, 2018 at 09:14:05PM +0100, Chris Wilson wrote:
> Quoting Rodrigo Vivi (2018-07-09 18:51:02)
> > On Mon, Jul 09, 2018 at 02:48:58PM +0100, Chris Wilson wrote:
> > > Error messages are intended to be addressed to the user; be clear,
> > > succinct, instructive and unambiguous. Adding the function name to
> > > that message does not add any information the user requires and in
> > > the process makes the message less clear.
> > > 
> > > E.g.
> > > 
> > > [  245.539711] i915 0000:00:02.0: [drm:i915_gem_init [i915]] Failed to initialize GPU, declaring it wedged!
> > 
> > Overall I like the idea...
> > 
> > The down side is that for us when debugging we would need to always trust grep like
> > searches and many debug messages are constructed out of variables what makes it a bit
> > hard to find sometimes. Ok, nothing that we couldn't figure out...
> 
> A big difference is that error messages are targeted at the user, and as
> such should be succinct and not require them to dig into the source code
> to understand what it means and what action they need to take. Usually
> such error messages are accompanied by a lot of debug output for
> developers to pour over, but for the average user, imo we just need to
> say what broke and no longer works, and how they can file a bug (any
> information we need for that bug should be captured automatically and
> read for them to attach).

it makes sense.

> 
> > > becomes
> > > 
> > > [  245.539711] i915 0000:00:02.0: Failed to initialize GPU, declaring it wedged!
> > 
> > What about adding an "ERROR:" ?
> 
> The KERN_ERR is recorded in the output for the userspace application to
> decide how to colourize and highlight when it presents the kmsg records.

hmm... good point.

Acked-by: Rodrigo Vivi <rodrigo.vivi at intel.com>

> -Chris
> _______________________________________________
> Intel-gfx mailing list
> Intel-gfx at lists.freedesktop.org
> https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/intel-gfx