Re: [RFC 0/2] RISC-V: A proposal to add vendor-specific code

[Palmer Dabbelt <palmer@sifive.com>]

On Sun, 04 Nov 2018 22:58:07 PST (-0800), vincentc@andestech.com wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 02, 2018 at 01:48:57AM +0800, Karsten Merker wrote:
>> On Wed, Oct 31, 2018 at 10:27:05AM -0700, Palmer Dabbelt wrote:
>> > On Wed, 31 Oct 2018 04:16:10 PDT (-0700), anup@brainfault.org wrote:
>> > > On Wed, Oct 31, 2018 at 4:06 PM Vincent Chen <vincentc@andestech.com> wrote:
>> > > >
>> > > >   RISC-V permits each vendor to develop respective extension ISA based
>> > > > on RISC-V standard ISA. This means that these vendor-specific features
>> > > > may be compatible to their compiler and CPU. Therefore, each vendor may
>> > > > be considered a sub-architecture of RISC-V. Currently, vendors do not
>> > > > have the appropriate examples to add these specific features to the
>> > > > kernel. In this RFC set, we propose an infrastructure that vendor can
>> > > > easily hook their specific features into kernel. The first commit is
>> > > > the main body of this infrastructure. In the second commit, we provide
>> > > > a solution that allows dma_map_ops() to work without cache coherent
>> > > > agent support. Cache coherent agent is unsupported for low-end CPUs in
>> > > > the AndeStar RISC-V series. In order for Linux to run on these CPUs, we
>> > > > need this solution to overcome the limitation of cache coherent agent
>> > > > support. Hence, it also can be used as an example for the first commit.
>> > > >
>> > > >   I am glad to discuss any ideas, so if you have any idea, please give
>> > > > me some feedback.
>> > > >
>> > > I agree that we need a place for vendor-specific ISA extensions and
>> > > having vendor-specific directories is also good.
>> > >
>> > > What I don't support is the approach of having compile time selection
>> > > of vendor-specific ISA extension.
>> > >
>> > > We should have runtime probing for compatible vendor-specific ISA
>> > > extension. Also, it should be possible to link multiple vendor-specific
>> > > SA extensions to same kernel image. This way we can have a single
>> > > kernel image (along with various vendor-specific ISA extensions) which
>> > > works on variety of targets/hosts.
>> > >
>> > > As an example or runtime probing you can look at how IRQCHIP or
>> > > CLOCKSOURCE drivers are probed. The vendor-specific ISA extension
>> > > hooks should called in similar fashion.
>> >
>> > Yes, I agree.  My biggest concern here is that we ensure that
>> > one kernel can boot on implementations from all vendors.  I
>> > haven't had a chance to look at the patches yet, but it should
>> > be possible to:
>> >
>> > * Build a kernel that has vendor-specific code from multiple vendors.
>> > * Detect the implementation an run time and select the correct extra
>> >   code.
>>
>> From a distro point of view we definitely want to have one kernel
>> image that is bootable everywhere.  Debian won't support any
>> platform that requires a per-platform or per-vendor kernel, and I
>> assume that the same will be true for Fedora and Suse.
>>
>> One thing that I have stumbled upon while looking at the patches
>> is that they seem to assume that X-type ISA extensions are
>> strictly per vendor.  Although that is probably true in the
>> majority of cases, it doesn't necessarily have to be - I could
>> e.g. imagine that the DSP extensions from the PULP cores might
>> be used by multiple vendors.  If such an extension would have
>> state that needs to be saved on context switch, it would need
>> corresponding kernel support.  Using "PULP" (or any other
>> open-source project) as the vendor in such a case leads to
>> another potential issue: the patches base everything on a JEDEC
>> vendor ID that is compared to the contents of the mvendorid CSR,
>> but such a JEDEC vendor ID usually doesn't exist for open-source
>> implementations; the majority of those have mvendorid set to
>> zero.
>>
> Many thanks for kinds of comments. I quickly synthesize the comments and
> list them as below.
> 1. The kernel image shall include all vendor-specific code.
> 2. This kernel image can only enable particular vendor-specific features
>    based on the CPU vendor in the running platform.
>    - The runtime probing mechanism can refer to arm32/arm64, powerpc,
>      IRQCHIP driver or CLOCKSOURCE driver
>    - For some cases, such as open-source projects, using CSR $mvendorid
>      to identify the compatibility is not appropriate.
> I think the above requirements are reasonable, but I have questions about
> the first requirement in practice. As far as I know, vendors are allowed
> to add specific instructions and CSRs which are incompatible with other
> vendors to their own ISA extensions. If I understand the first requirement
> correctly, it implies that we need a "super" RISC-V toolchain. This "super"
> RISC-V toolchain should recognize all kinds of vendor-specific instructions
> and CSRs, so that it can compile vendor sources into objects successfully;
> then it should recognize all kinds of vendor-specific relocations, so that
> it can link the objects successfully. Each of them is not trivial at the
> time of this proposal and in foreseeable future.
>
> If it will take a long time to complete this "super" toolchain, I suppose
> the infrastructure in this RFC might be a temporary solution before it is
> ready. This scheme does not suffer the compilation problems caused by the
> lack of the super toolchain because the selection of vendor-specific ISA
> extension is determined at compile time. In addition, the mechanism for
> checking compatibility at runtime ensures that the kernel with
> vendor-specific feature runs on CPUs of other vendors just like pure
> RISC-V kernel. In other words, this scheme, to some extent, satisfies the
> requirements that one kernel image is bootable everywhere.

I don't want anything in the kernel that can't be compiled by upstream GCC, as 
that will be a huge mess.  As far as I'm concerned, the best way to move 
forward is to figure out how each style of extension can be integrated.  Right 
now, what I see is:

* Performance counters.  Here we should be safe, as there's an ISA-mandated 
  space in which to put non-standard performance counters.  The support here is 
  just figuring out how to interpret the bits.  This naturally fits into our 
  current device-tree based mechanisms for probing hardware, and will be easy 
  to maintain in the kernel.
* Cache management.  It appears these are currently being described as 
  instructions, which means they won't compile by default.  Here I think the 
  best bet is to rely on the SBI, and if that's too slow to build a "SBI VDSO" 
  mechanism to accelerate the relevant bits.  It is a bit of a headache, but 
  we're not going to have anything standardized here quickly.

If those are the only two concerns then I think we're OK.  Are there any other 
extension you're worried about?

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