Date:	Mon, 29 Jun 2009 11:27:41 -0400 (EDT)
From:	Alan Stern <stern@...land.harvard.edu>
To:	"Rafael J. Wysocki" <rjw@...k.pl>
cc:	Greg KH <gregkh@...e.de>, LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	ACPI Devel Maling List <linux-acpi@...r.kernel.org>,
	Linux-pm mailing list <linux-pm@...ts.linux-foundation.org>,
	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...e.hu>,
	Arjan van de Ven <arjan@...radead.org>
Subject: Re: [patch update] PM: Introduce core framework for run-time PM of
 I/O devices (rev. 6)

On Mon, 29 Jun 2009, Rafael J. Wysocki wrote:

> > > So, it seems, pm_request_resume() can't kill suspend requests by itself
> > > and instead it has to queue up resume requests for this purpose, which
> > > brings us right back to the problem of two requests queued up at a time
> > > (a delayed suspend request and a resume request that is supposed to cancel it).
> > 
> > No, you're trying to do too much.  If the state is RPM_IDLE (i.e., a 
> > suspend request is pending) then rpm_request_resume doesn't need to do 
> > anything.  The device is already resumed!  Sure, it can try to kill the 
> > request and change the state to RPM_ACTIVE, but it doesn't need to.
> 
> I think it does need to do that, because the reuqest may be scheduled way
> in the future and we can't preserve its work structure until it runs.
> pm_request_resume() doesn't know in advance when the suspend work function is
> going to be queued up and run.

It doesn't need to know.  All it needs to do is guarantee that the
device will be in a resumed state some time not long after the function
returns.  Thus calling rpm_request_resume while the status is RPM_IDLE
is like calling it while the status is RPM_ACTIVE.  In neither case
does it have to do anything, because the device will already be resumed
when it returns.

Perhaps instead we should provide a way to kill a pending suspend
request?  It's not clear that anyone would need this.  The only reason
I can think of is if you wanted to change the timeout duration.  But it
wouldn't be able to run in interrupt context.

> > Think about it.  Even if the suspend request were killed off, there's 
> > always the possibility that someone could call rpm_runtime_suspend 
> > right afterward.  If the driver really wants to resume the device and 
> > prevent it from suspending again, then the driver should call 
> > pm_runtime_get before pm_request_resume.  Then it won't matter if the 
> > suspend request runs.
> 
> No, it doesn't matter if the request runs, but it does matter if the work
> structure used for queuing it up may be used for another purpose. :-)

What else would it be used for?  If rpm_request_resume returns without 
doing anything and leaves the status set to RPM_IDLE, then the work 
structure won't be reused until the status changes.


> The problem with pm_<something>_put is that it does two things at a time,
> decrements the resume counter and runs or queues up an idle notification.
> Perhaps it's a good idea to call it after the second thing and change
> pm_runtime_get() to pm_runtime_inuse(), so that we have:
> 
> * pm_runtime_inuse() - increment the resume counter
> * pm_runtime_idle() - decrement the resume counter and run idle notification
> * pm_request_idle()  - decrement the resume counter and queue idle notification
> 
> and __pm_runtime_idle() as the "bare" idle notification function?

I could live with that, but the nice thing about "get" and "put" is
that they directly suggest a counter is being maintained and therefore
the calls have to balance.  Maybe we should just call it 
rpm_request_put and not worry that the put happens immediately.

Alan Stern

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