linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] ARM: Gemini: Add support for PCI BUS

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Date:	Mon, 29 Nov 2010 22:19:59 +0200
From:	Paulius Zaleckas <paulius.zaleckas@...il.com>
To:	Arnd Bergmann <arnd@...db.de>
CC:	linux-arm-kernel@...ts.infradead.org,
	Hans Ulli Kroll <ulli.kroll@...glemail.com>,
	Russell King <linux@....linux.org.uk>,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH] ARM: Gemini: Add support for PCI BUS

On 11/29/2010 10:02 PM, Arnd Bergmann wrote:
> On Monday 29 November 2010 19:52:55 Paulius Zaleckas wrote:
>> On 11/29/2010 06:45 PM, Arnd Bergmann wrote:
>>> There are many differences between readl and __raw_readl, including
>>>
>>> * __raw_readl does not have barriers and does not serialize with
>>>     spinlocks, so it breaks on out-of-order CPUs.
>>> * __raw_readl does not have a specific endianess, while readl is
>>>     fixed little-endian, just as the hardware is in this case.
>>>     The endian-conversion is a NOP on little-endian ARM, but required
>>>     if you actually run on a big-endian ARM (you don't).
>>> * __raw_readl may not be atomic, gcc is free to split the access
>>>     into byte wise reads (it normally does not, unless you mark
>>>     the pointer __attribute__((packed))).
>>>
>>> In essence, it is almost never a good idea to use __raw_readl, and
>>> the double underscores should tell you so.
>>
>> You are wrong:
>>
>> Since CONFIG_ARM_DMA_MEM_BUFFERABLE is NOT defined for FA526 core,
>> no barriers are in use when using readl. It just translates into
>> le32_to_cpu(__raw_readl(x)). Now this CPU has physical pin for endianess
>> configuration and if you will chose big-endian you will fail to read
>> internal registers, because they ALSO change endianess and le32_to_cpu()
>> will screw it. However it is different when accessing registers through
>> PCI bus, then you need to use readl().
>
> Ok, I only checked that the platform does not support big-endian Linux
> kernel, not if the HW designers screwed up their registers, sorry about
> that.
>
> The other points are of course still valid: If the code ever gets
> used on an out of order CPU, it is broken. More importantly, if someone
> looks at the code as an example for writing another PCI support code,
> it may end up getting copied to some place where it ends up causing
> trouble.
>
> The typical way to deal with mixed-endian hardware reliably is to have
> a header file containing code like
>
> #ifdef CONFIG_GEMINI_BIG_ENDIAN_IO
> #define gemini_readl(x) __swab32(readl(x))
> #define ...
> #else
> #define gemini_readl(x) readl(x))
> #endif
>
> This also takes care of the (not as unlikely as you'd hope) case that
> the next person reusing the PCI hardware wires its endianess different
> from the CPU endianess.

Actually I am not very sure how CPU works in big endian mode :)
I have never tried it and I think only some guys who made it did that.
So readl will work for 99.99% of cases. In datasheet they say that:
"All registers in Gemini use Little Endian and must be accessed by aligned
32-bit word operations. The bus connection interface logic provides an Endian
Conversion function."
For me it looks like it can mean whatever you want :)
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