Re: [PATCH v1 6/6] i2c: npcm: Support NPCM845

[Krzysztof Kozlowski <krzysztof.kozlowski@canonical.com>]

On 08/02/2022 09:51, Tali Perry wrote:
>> On 08/02/2022 08:14, Tali Perry wrote:
>>>> Subject: Re: [PATCH v1 6/6] i2c: npcm: Support NPCM845
>>>>
>>>> On 07/02/2022 13:00, Jonathan Neuschäfer wrote:
>>>>> Hello,
>>>>>
>>>>> On Mon, Feb 07, 2022 at 02:33:38PM +0800, Tyrone Ting wrote:
>>>>>> From: Tyrone Ting <kfting@nuvoton.com>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> NPCM8XX uses a similar i2c module as NPCM7XX.
>>>>>> The only difference is that the internal HW FIFO is larger.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Related Makefile and Kconfig files are modified to support as well.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Fixes: 56a1485b102e ("i2c: npcm7xx: Add Nuvoton NPCM I2C controller
>>>>>> driver")
>>>>>
>>>>> It's not really a bug fix, but rather an additional feature.
>>>>> Therefore, I suggest removing the Fixes tag from this patch.
>>>>>
>>>>>> Signed-off-by: Tyrone Ting <kfting@nuvoton.com>
>>>>>> Signed-off-by: Tali Perry <tali.perry1@gmail.com>
>>>>>> ---
>>>>> [...]
>>>>>>  /* init register and default value required to enable module */
>>>>>>  #define NPCM_I2CSEGCTL 0xE4
>>>>>> +#ifdef CONFIG_ARCH_NPCM7XX
>>>>>>  #define NPCM_I2CSEGCTL_INIT_VAL 0x0333F000
>>>>>> +#else
>>>>>> +#define NPCM_I2CSEGCTL_INIT_VAL 0x9333F000
>>>>>> +#endif
>>>>>
>>>>> This is going to cause problems when someone tries to compile a kernel
>>>>> that runs on both NPCM7xx and NPCM8xx (because the driver will then
>>>>> only work on NPCM7xx).
>>>>
>>>> Yes, good catch.
>>>>
>>>> The NPCM7XX is multiplatform, I guess NPCM8xx will be as well, so this looks like an invalid code. How such code is supposed to work on multiplatform kernel?
>>>>
>>>
>>> NPCM7xx and NPCM8xx are very different devices.
>>> They share same driver sources for some of the modules but it's not ABI.
>>> Users cannot compile a single kernel with two separate DTS.
>>> In case of the i2c controller, the npcm7xx has a 16 byte HW FIFO,
>>> and the NPCM8xx has 32 bytes HW FIFO.
>>> This also means that registers fields are slightly different.
>>> For init data we can move it to the DTS, but register field sizes
>>> can't be handled with this approach.
>>>
>>
>> What do you mean they cannot compile a kernel with different DTS? Of
>> course they can - when we talk about multiplatform sub-architectures!
>> Maybe there is something specific in NPCMxxx which stops it but then it
>> should not be marked multiplatform.
>>
> 
> 
> NCPM7xx is ARM32 bit (dual core Cortex A9)
> NPCM8xx is ARM64 bit (quad core Cortex A35)
> 
> They have completely different architecture so not ABI compliant.
> I2C module is similar, but the devices are quite different and have
> separate architectures.

OK, in such case usually you indeed can't have both. :)

> Sorry for the confusion.
> This is the first patch we try to upstream for NPCM8xx.
> In the coming weeks we will upstream the architecture of NPCM8xx as well.

Still, ARCH_XXX should not be hard-coded in the drivers to change the
driver's behavior, even if driver won't be used simultaneously. It
breaks all design principles and prevents any further re-use if a new
use case appears.

You can use "ifdef ARCH_XXX" to skip building of some parts of the
driver, but it's not the case here.


Best regards,
Krzysztof