Re: [PATCH v4 00/11] drm: add support for Atmel HLCDC Display Controller

[Boris BREZILLON <boris.brezillon@free-electrons.com>]

Hi Laurent,

On Tue, 26 Aug 2014 01:39:21 +0200
Laurent Pinchart <laurent.pinchart@ideasonboard.com> wrote:

> Hi Boris,
> 
> On Thursday 21 August 2014 19:26:33 Boris BREZILLON wrote:
> > On Thu, 21 Aug 2014 19:08:53 +0200
> > Laurent Pinchart <laurent.pinchart@ideasonboard.com> wrote:
> > 
> > [...]
> > 
> > >>>> While this could be acceptable when all drivers are statically linked
> > >>>> in the kernel, it might be problematic when you're using modules,
> > >>>> meaning that you won't be able to display anything on your LCD panel
> > >>>> until your HDMI bridge module has been loaded.
> > >>> 
> > >>> No. HDMI should be using proper hotplugging anyway, hence it should be
> > >>> always be loaded anyway. You're in for a world of pain if you think
> > >>> you can run DRM with a driver that's composed of separate kernel
> > >>> modules.
> > >> 
> > >> I was talking about the external RGB to HDMI encoder, should the driver
> > >> for this encoder (which is not on On Chip block) be compiled
> > >> statically too ?
> > > 
> > > Given the move to multiplatform kernels we need to aim for as few modules
> > > compiled in as possible. I'd say this includes HDMI encoders, panels and
> > > display controllers.
> > > 
> > >>> Also if you don't want to use deferred probe, then you're in for the
> > >>> full hotplugging panel dance and that implies that you need to fix a
> > >>> bunch of things in DRM (one being the framebuffer console
> > >>> instantiation
> > >>> that I referred to in the other thread).
> > >> 
> > >> For now, I wait until there is a device connected on the RGB connector
> > >> (connector status set to connector_status_connected) before creating an
> > >> fbdev. It might not be the cleanest way to solve this issue, but it
> > >> works :-).
> > > 
> > > Do you create a new drm_encoder at runtime for the HDMI encoder when it
> > > appears ? I thought the DRM core and API were not able to correctly cope
> > > with that.
> > 
> > I haven't started to work on the HDMI encoder yet, and ATM I only have
> > a single connector (which is true from an HW POV), which is then bound
> > to an LCD panel (the only type of remote endpoint I currently support).
> > 
> > BTW, I wonder how my use case should be represented in the DRM
> > subsystem. As I said, from an HW POV I only have one RGB (or whatever
> > name you choose for it) connector. But on such kind of connectors you
> > can connect several output devices (panels, encoders, ...).
> > And in my case I have 2 devices on the same RGB connector: a panel and
> > an RGB to HDMI converter.
> 
> The DRM connector object was initially meant to model a physical user-
> accessible connector on a board (VGA, DVI, HDMI, ...) and the properties of 
> the monitor plugged into it. It has then been (ab)used to represent panels, as 
> they're similar to monitors.
> 
> In your case the VGA and HDMI connectors should be modeled as DRM connectors, 
> the RGB to HDMI encoder as a DRM encoder, and the LCDC as a DRM CRTC.

I don't have any VGA connector (or I'm missing something :-)), but I
have an LCD panel and an RGB to HDMI encoder connected on the same RGB
connector.

> 
> As DRM hardcodes the pipeline model to CRTC -> encoder -> connector, you will 
> also need a DRM encoder in the VGA path. I suppose your board has a VGA DAC, 
> that's the component you should expose as a DRM encoder (even if it can't be 
> controlled and doesn't limit the valid modes).

Actually, my problem is that both devices are connected on the same RGB
connector, and thus share the same display mode (resolution, HSYNC,
VSYNC, RGB output mode, ...).
This means that all remote devices have to agree on a specific mode if
we want to mirror the display on several output devices, otherwise we
must disable one of the output devices.

> 
> > >>> You also can't be using the current device tree bindings because they
> > >>> all assume a dependency from the display controller/output to the
> > >>> panel. For hotplugging you'd need the dependency the other way around
> > >>> (the panel needs to refer to the output by phandle).
> > >> 
> > >> Here [1] is a proposal for notification support in the drm_panel
> > >> infrastructure (which is not that complicated), and here [2] is how
> > >> I use it in my atmel-hlcdc driver to generate hotplug events.
> > > 
> > > Is there a way we could use the component framework for that ? I know that
> > > partial notification isn't supported at the moment, but Russell agreed it
> > > was a real use case that should be implemented at some point.
> > 
> > I'll give it a try.
> 



-- 
Boris Brezillon, Free Electrons
Embedded Linux and Kernel engineering
http://free-electrons.com