Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44L0.1108111037240.1958-100000@iolanthe.rowland.org>
Date:	Thu, 11 Aug 2011 10:56:03 -0400 (EDT)
From:	Alan Stern <stern@...land.harvard.edu>
To:	Hans de Goede <hdegoede@...hat.com>
cc:	Theodore Kilgore <kilgota@...ach.math.auburn.edu>,
	Sarah Sharp <sarah.a.sharp@...ux.intel.com>,
	Greg KH <greg@...ah.com>,
	Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@...radead.org>,
	<linux-usb@...r.kernel.org>, <linux-media@...r.kernel.org>,
	<linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	<libusb-devel@...ts.sourceforge.net>,
	Alexander Graf <agraf@...e.de>,
	Gerd Hoffmann <kraxel@...hat.com>, <hector@...cansoft.com>,
	Jan Kiszka <jan.kiszka@...mens.com>,
	Stefan Hajnoczi <stefanha@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>,
	<pbonzini@...hat.com>, Anthony Liguori <aliguori@...ibm.com>,
	Jes Sorensen <Jes.Sorensen@...hat.com>,
	Oliver Neukum <oliver@...kum.org>, Felipe Balbi <balbi@...com>,
	Clemens Ladisch <clemens@...isch.de>,
	Jaroslav Kysela <perex@...ex.cz>, Takashi Iwai <tiwai@...e.de>,
	Laurent Pinchart <laurent.pinchart@...asonboard.com>,
	Adam Baker <linux@...er-net.org.uk>
Subject: Re: USB mini-summit at LinuxCon Vancouver

On Thu, 11 Aug 2011, Hans de Goede wrote:

> > The alternative seems to be to define a device-sharing protocol for USB
> > drivers.  Kernel drivers would implement a new callback (asking them to
> > give up control of the device), and usbfs would implement new ioctls by
> > which a program could ask for and relinquish control of a device.  The
> > amount of rewriting needed would be relatively small.
> >
> > A few loose ends would remain, such as how to handle suspends, resumes,
> > resets, and disconnects.  Assuming usbfs is the only driver that will
> > want to share a device in this way, we could handle them.
> >
> > Hans, what do you think?
> >
> 
> First of all thanks for the constructive input!
> 
> When you say: "device-sharing protocol", do you mean 2 drivers been
> attached, but only 1 being active. Or just some additional glue to make
> hand-over between them work better?

I was thinking that the webcam driver would always be attached, but 
from time to time usbfs would ask to use the device.  When the webcam 
driver gives away control, it remains bound to the device but does not 
send any URBs.  If it needs to send an URB, first it has to ask usbfs 
to give control back.

> I've 2 concerns with this approach:
> 1) Assuming we are going for the just make hand over work better solution
> we will still have the whole disappear / reappear act of the /dev/video#
> node, which I don't like at all.

That will not happen any more, because the webcam driver will always be 
bound to the device.

> If for example skype gets started it will say the user has no camera. If it
> were to say the device is busy, the user just might make a link to some
> application using the device in stillcam mode still being open.
> 
> 2) The whole notion of the device being in use is rather vague when it comes
> to the userspace parts of this. Simply leaving say F-Spot running, or having
> a gvfs libgphoto share mounted, should not lead to not being able to use the
> device in webcam mode. But currently it will.

That's true -- but it's true no matter what solution we adopt.  The
various drivers (whether in the kernel or in userspace) will have to
decide for themselves when they can give up control.

> Fixing all users of libgphoto2 wrt this is unlikely to happen, and even if
> we do that now, more broken ones will likely come along later. I estimate
> 98% of all cameras are not dual mode cameras, so the average stillcam
> application developer will not test for this.

Not all users of libgphoto2 have to be changed; only those which manage
dual-mode cameras.  Adding a few ioctls to ask for and give up control
at the appropriate times must be a lot easier than porting the entire
driver into the kernel.

> That leaves us with fixing the busy notion inside libgphoto2, iow, release
> the device as soon as an operation has completed. This will be quite slow,
> since both drivers don't know anything about each other, they will just
> know there is some $random_other_driver. So they need to assume the
> device state is unclean and re-init the device from scratch each time.

Well, a user program can assume that the kernel driver left the device
in a clean state.  The reverse isn't always true, however -- it's one
of the drawbacks of using a userspace driver.

Besides, even though drivers don't always have to re-init the device
from scratch every time, they do send all the current settings each
time they use the device.  So maybe the extra overhead is tolerable.

> Where as if we have both functions in one driver, that can remember the
> actual device state and only make changes if needed, so downloading +
> deleting 10 photos will lead to setting it to stillcam mode once, rather
> then 20 times.

Depends how the ask-for-control ioctl is implemented.  It might return
a value indicating whether or not the webcam driver took control during
the interval when the user program wasn't using the device.  If usbfs
retained control the entire time, the program should be able to assume
the device's state hasn't changed.

I'm not claiming that this is a better solution than putting everything
in the kernel.  Just that it is a workable alternative which would
involve a lot less coding.

Alan Stern

--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@...r.kernel.org
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/

Powered by blists - more mailing lists