Re: [RFCv3 2/2] dma-buf: add helpers for sharing attacher constraints with dma-parms

[Russell King - ARM Linux <linux@arm.linux.org.uk>]

On Thu, Jan 29, 2015 at 05:18:33PM -0500, Rob Clark wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 29, 2015 at 2:26 PM, Russell King - ARM Linux
> <linux@arm.linux.org.uk> wrote:
> > Now, if we're going to do the "more clever" thing you mention above,
> > that rather negates the point of this two-part patch set, which is to
> > provide the union of the DMA capabilities of all users.  A union in
> > that case is no longer sane as we'd be tailoring the SG lists to each
> > user.
> 
> It doesn't really negate.. a different sg list representing the same
> physical memory cannot suddenly make the buffer physically contiguous
> (from the perspective of memory)..
> 
> (unless we are not on the same page here, so to speak)

If we are really only interested in the "physically contiguous" vs
"scattered" differentiation, why can't this be just a simple flag?

I think I know where you're coming from on that distinction - most
GPUs can cope with their buffers being discontiguous in memory, but
scanout and capture hardware tends to need contiguous buffers.

My guess is that you're looking for some way that a GPU driver could
allocate a buffer, which can then be imported into the scanout
hardware - and when it is, the underlying backing store is converted
to a contiguous buffer.  Is that the usage scenario you're thinking
of?

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