From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S264488AbTLQRos (ORCPT ); Wed, 17 Dec 2003 12:44:48 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S264489AbTLQRos (ORCPT ); Wed, 17 Dec 2003 12:44:48 -0500 Received: from rrcs-sw-24-153-196-99.biz.rr.com ([24.153.196.99]:54722 "EHLO obiwan.dummynet") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S264488AbTLQRok (ORCPT ); Wed, 17 Dec 2003 12:44:40 -0500 Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 11:44:27 -0600 From: Dan Hopper To: Linus Torvalds Cc: Linux Kernel Development , vladimir.kondratiev@intel.com Subject: Re: PCI Express support for 2.4 kernel Message-ID: <20031217174427.GA31730@obiwan.dummynet> Mail-Followup-To: Dan Hopper , Linus Torvalds , Linux Kernel Development , vladimir.kondratiev@intel.com References: <3FDDACA9.1050600@intel.com> <1071494155.5223.3.camel@laptop.fenrus.com> <3FDDBDFE.5020707@intel.com> <3FDEDC77.9010203@intel.com> <3FDFF81F.7040309@intel.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.28i Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Linus Torvalds remarked: > > On Wed, 17 Dec 2003, Geert Uytterhoeven wrote: > > > > For the record: PCI Express is _not_ PCI-X. > > Ok, but "PCI Express" is too damn long to write, so we'll have to have > _some_ sane name for it without typing for half an hour. FWIW, "PCI-E" is in common use in these parts. Also, wrt the config space backward compatibility issue, it is my understanding that the PCI-E root complex and PCI-E devices can be enumerated and used successfully with no software changes, within the constraints of PCI. The BIOS or OS should be able to enumerate devices, probe BARs and assign resources, perform basic error handling, etc. without any PCI-E-specific changes. The hardware is required to be able to initialize PCI-E links, set things up to sane states, and so forth without software assistance in order to make this magic happen. It would be interesting to hear from Vladimir as to whether or not this is happening with his PCI-E test system. Having said all that, it's obviously preferable to end up with native OS and BIOS support for the PCI-E extended configuration space, extra error reporting mechanisms, etc. Native PCI-E devices hanging off the bus somewhere might not work (or, at least, work well) with an OS that doesn't grok the PCI-E extensions. Dan