Staging status of speakup

[gregkh@linuxfoundation.org (Greg Kroah-Hartman)]

On Sat, Jul 06, 2019@08:08:57PM +0100, Okash Khawaja wrote:
> On Fri, 15 Mar 2019 20:18:31 -0700
> Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
> 
> > On Fri, Mar 15, 2019@01:01:27PM +0000, Okash Khawaja wrote:
> > > Hi,
> > > 
> > > We have made progress on the items in TODO file of speakup driver in
> > > staging directory and wanted to get some clarity on the remaining
> > > items. Below is a summary of status of each item along with the
> > > quotes from TODO file.
> > > 
> > > 1. "The first issue has to do with the way speakup communicates
> > > with serial ports.  Currently, we communicate directly with the
> > > hardware ports. This however conflicts with the standard serial
> > > port drivers, which poses various problems. This is also not
> > > working for modern hardware such as PCI-based serial ports.  Also,
> > > there is not a way we can communicate with USB devices.  The
> > > current serial port handling code is in serialio.c in this
> > > directory."
> > > 
> > > Drivers for all external synths now use TTY to communcate with the
> > > devices. Only ones still using direct communication with hardware
> > > ports are internal synths: acntpc, decpc, dtlk and keypc. These are
> > > typically ISA cards and generally hardware which is difficult to
> > > make work. We can leave these in staging.  
> > 
> > Ok, that's fine.
> > 
> > > 2. "Some places are currently using in_atomic() because speakup
> > > functions are called in various contexts, and a couple of things
> > > can't happen in these cases. Pushing work to some worker thread
> > > would probably help, as was already done for the serial port
> > > driving part."
> > > 
> > > There aren't any uses of in_atomic anymore. Commit d7500135802c
> > > "Staging: speakup: Move pasting into a work item" was the last one
> > > that removed such uses.  
> > 
> > Great, let's remove that todo item then.
> > 
> > > 3. "There is a duplication of the selection functions in
> > > selections.c. These functions should get exported from
> > > drivers/char/selection.c (clear_selection notably) and used from
> > > there instead."
> > > 
> > > This is yet to be done. I guess drivers/char/selection.c is now
> > > under drivers/tty/vt/selection.c.  
> > 
> > Yes, someone should update the todo item :)
> > 
> > > 4. "The kobjects may have to move to a more proper place in /sys.The
> > > discussion on lkml resulted to putting speech synthesizers in the
> > > "speech" class, and the speakup screen reader itself
> > > into /sys/class/vtconsole/vtcon0/speakup, the nasty path being
> > > handled by userland tools."
> > > 
> > > Although this makes logical sense, the change will mean changing
> > > interface with userspace and hence the user space tools. I tried to
> > > search the lkml discussion but couldn't find it. It will be good to
> > > know your thoughts on this.  
> > 
> > I don't remember, sorry.  I can review the kobject/sysfs usage if you
> > think it is "good enough" now and see if I find anything
> > objectionable.
> > 
> > > Finally there is an issue where text in output buffer sometimes gets
> > > garbled on SMP systems, but we can continue working on it after the
> > > driver is moved out of staging, if that's okay. Basically we need a
> > > reproducer of this issue.
> > > 
> > > In addition to above, there are likely code style issues which will
> > > need to be fixed.
> > > 
> > > We are very keen to get speakup out of staging both, for settling
> > > the driver but also for getting included in distros which build
> > > only the mainline drivers.  
> > 
> > That's great, I am glad to see this happen.  How about work on the
> > selection thing and then I can review the kobject stuff in a few
> > weeks, and then we can start moving things for 5.2?
> 
> Hi Greg,
> 
> Apologies for the delay. I de-duplicated selection code in speakup to
> use code that's already in kernel (commit ids 496124e5e16e and
> 41f13084506a). Following items are what remain now:
> 
> 1. moving kobjects location
> 2. fixing garbled text
> 
> I couldn't replicate garbled text but Simon (also in CC list) is
> looking into it.
> 
> Can you please advise on the way forward?

I don't think the "garbled text" is an issue to get this out of staging
if others do not see this.  It can be fixed like any other bug at a
later point if it is figured out.

The kobject stuff does need to be looked at.  Let me carve out some time
next week to do that and I will let you know what I see/recommend.

thanks,

greg k-h