Re: [PATCH v7 06/19] rtc: sun6i: Add support for RTCs without external LOSCs

From: Maxime Ripard <maxime@cerno.tech>
To: Icenowy Zheng <icenowy@aosc.io>
Cc: Andre Przywara <andre.przywara@arm.com>,
	Chen-Yu Tsai <wens@csie.org>,
	Jernej Skrabec <jernej.skrabec@gmail.com>,
	Rob Herring <robh@kernel.org>,
	Samuel Holland <samuel@sholland.org>,
	linux-arm-kernel@lists.infradead.org,
	linux-sunxi@googlegroups.com, linux-sunxi@lists.linux.dev,
	linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Ondrej Jirman <megous@megous.com>,
	Alessandro Zummo <a.zummo@towertech.it>,
	Alexandre Belloni <alexandre.belloni@bootlin.com>,
	linux-rtc@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH v7 06/19] rtc: sun6i: Add support for RTCs without external LOSCs
Date: Thu, 29 Jul 2021 12:32:28 +0200	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20210729103228.prdav7eobi52y3ny@gilmour> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <1e49692a2f4548ae942e170bc1ae9431a6eb512e.camel@aosc.io>

On Thu, Jul 29, 2021 at 04:04:10PM +0800, Icenowy Zheng wrote:
> 在 2021-06-16星期三的 11:14 +0200，Maxime Ripard写道：
> > Hi,
> > 
> > On Tue, Jun 15, 2021 at 12:06:23PM +0100, Andre Przywara wrote:
> > > Some newer Allwinner RTCs (for instance the one in the H616 SoC)
> > > lack
> > > a pin for an external 32768 Hz oscillator. As a consequence, this
> > > LOSC
> > > can't be selected as the RTC clock source, and we must rely on the
> > > internal RC oscillator.
> > > To allow additions of clocks to the RTC node, add a feature bit to
> > > ignore
> > > any provided clocks for now (the current code would think this is
> > > the
> > > external LOSC). Later DTs and code can then for instance add the
> > > PLL
> > > based clock input, and older kernel won't get confused.
> > > 
> > > Signed-off-by: Andre Przywara <andre.przywara@arm.com>
> > 
> > Honestly, I don't really know if it's worth it at this point.
> > 
> > If we sums this up:
> > 
> >  - The RTC has 2 features that we use, mostly centered around 2
> >    registers set plus a global one
> > 
> >  - Those 2 features are programmed in a completely different way
> > 
> >  - Even the common part is different, given the discussion around the
> >    clocks that we have.
> > 
> > What is there to share in that driver aside from the probe, and maybe
> > the interrupt handling? Instead of complicating this further with
> > more
> > special case that you were (rightfully) complaining about, shouldn't
> > we
> > just acknowledge the fact that it's a completely separate design and
> > should be treated as such, with a completely separate driver?
> 
> I think our problem is just that we're having a single driver for both
> functionalities (clock manager and RTC).
> 
> Personally I don't think we should have seperated driver for clock
> managers, although I am fine with seperated RTC driver for linear days.

Why do you think it's a bad idea to have the RTC and clocks in the same
driver?

Maxime