Re: [PATCH v3 2/2] misc: Add iop driver for Sunplus SP7021

From: gregkh <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
To: "Tony Huang 黃懷厚" <tony.huang@sunplus.com>
Cc: "Arnd Bergmann" <arnd@arndb.de>,
	"Tony Huang" <tonyhuang.sunplus@gmail.com>,
	"Rob Herring" <robh+dt@kernel.org>,
	DTML <devicetree@vger.kernel.org>,
	"Linux Kernel Mailing List" <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>,
	"Derek Kiernan" <derek.kiernan@xilinx.com>,
	"Dragan Cvetic" <dragan.cvetic@xilinx.com>,
	"Wells Lu 呂芳騰" <wells.lu@sunplus.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v3 2/2] misc: Add iop driver for Sunplus SP7021
Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2021 16:31:20 +0100	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <YbytSBN+4M2JKAuJ@kroah.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <5c01390c485a44b6913dcb42e3677ed1@sphcmbx02.sunplus.com.tw>

On Fri, Dec 17, 2021 at 03:16:53PM +0000, Tony Huang 黃懷厚 wrote:
> Dear Arnd:
> 
> > On Thu, Dec 9, 2021 at 9:58 AM Tony Huang <tonyhuang.sunplus@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > IOP (IO Processor) embedded inside SP7021 which is used as Processor
> > > for I/O control, RTC wake-up and cooperation with CPU & PMC in power
> > > management purpose.
> > > The IOP core is DQ8051, so also named IOP8051, it supports dedicated
> > > JTAG debug pins which share with SP7021.
> > > In standby mode operation, the power spec reach 400uA.
> > >
> > > Signed-off-by: Tony Huang <tonyhuang.sunplus@gmail.com>
> > 
> > Thanks for the improvements, this again looks better than the previous version.
> > I still have some minor comments, and there are a couple of details I have
> > commented on before that would need to be addressed, but let's focus on the
> > one main issue for now:
> > 
> > The driver still doesn't actually /do/ anything: you load the firmware when the
> > driver is loaded, and you shut it down when the driver is removed, but
> > otherwise there is no way to interact with the iop. You had the miscdevice
> > earlier, and you still register that, but there are no file_operations associated
> > with it, so it still doesn't have any effect.
> > 
> > In the original version you had a couple of user-side interfaces, for which Greg
> > and I commented that they were not using the correct abstractions, and you
> > still list them in the changelog text as "I/O control, RTC wake-up and
> > cooperation with CPU & PMC in power management".
> > 
> > If you want to make any progress with adding the driver, I'd say you should
> > implement at least two of those high-level interfaces that interact with the
> > respective kernel subsystems in order to show that the abstraction works.
> > 
> 
> Q:"with respective kernel subsystems in order to show that the abstraction works."
> May I ask you about repective kernel subsystem.
> If I use the file_operation method
> Provide user can read and write IOP(8051)'s register.
> Is this a repective kernel subsystem?
> if not
> There are other driver code can give me reference
> 

I still do not understand what the goal of this driver is.

What is the problem that you are needing to solve?  What needs to access
this hardware, and what exactly was this hardware designed to do?

thanks,

greg k-h