linux-kernel - Re: Tearing down DMA transfer setup after DMA client has finished

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Date:   Thu, 8 Dec 2016 12:18:59 +0100
From:   Geert Uytterhoeven <geert@...ux-m68k.org>
To:     Mason <slash.tmp@...e.fr>
Cc:     Vinod Koul <vinod.koul@...el.com>, Mans Rullgard <mans@...sr.com>,
        Russell King <linux@....linux.org.uk>,
        dmaengine@...r.kernel.org,
        Linus Walleij <linus.walleij@...aro.org>,
        Dan Williams <dan.j.williams@...el.com>,
        LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        Linux ARM <linux-arm-kernel@...ts.infradead.org>,
        Jon Mason <jdmason@...zu.us>, Mark Brown <broonie@...nel.org>,
        Lars-Peter Clausen <lars@...afoo.de>,
        Lee Jones <lee.jones@...aro.org>,
        Laurent Pinchart <laurent.pinchart@...asonboard.com>,
        Arnd Bergmann <arnd@...db.de>,
        Maxime Ripard <maxime.ripard@...e-electrons.com>,
        Dave Jiang <dave.jiang@...el.com>,
        Peter Ujfalusi <peter.ujfalusi@...com>,
        Bartlomiej Zolnierkiewicz <b.zolnierkie@...sung.com>,
        Sebastian Frias <sf84@...oste.net>,
        Thibaud Cornic <thibaud_cornic@...madesigns.com>
Subject: Re: Tearing down DMA transfer setup after DMA client has finished

On Thu, Dec 8, 2016 at 11:54 AM, Mason <slash.tmp@...e.fr> wrote:
> On 08/12/2016 11:39, Vinod Koul wrote:
>> On Wed, Dec 07, 2016 at 04:45:58PM +0000, Måns Rullgård wrote:
>>> Vinod Koul <vinod.koul@...el.com> writes:
>>>> On Tue, Dec 06, 2016 at 01:14:20PM +0000, Måns Rullgård wrote:
>>>>> That's not going to work very well.  Device drivers typically request
>>>>> dma channels in their probe functions or when the device is opened.
>>>>> This means that reserving one of the few channels there will inevitably
>>>>> make some other device fail to operate.
>>>>
>>>> No that doesn't make sense at all, you should get a channel only when you
>>>> want to use it and not in probe!
>>>
>>> Tell that to just about every single driver ever written.
>>
>> Not really, few do yes which is wrong but not _all_ do that.
>
> Vinod,
>
> Could you explain something to me in layman's terms?
>
> I have a NAND Flash Controller driver that depends on the
> DMA driver under discussion.
>
> Suppose I move the dma_request_chan() call from the driver's
> probe function, to the actual DMA transfer function.
>
> I would want dma_request_chan() to put the calling thread
> to sleep until a channel becomes available (possibly with
> a timeout value).
>
> But Maxime told me dma_request_chan() will just return
> -EBUSY if no channels are available.
>
> Am I supposed to busy wait in my driver's DMA function
> until a channel becomes available?

Can you fall back to PIO if requesting a channel fails?

Alternatively, dma_request_chan() could always succeed, and
dmaengine_prep_slave_sg() could fail if the channel is currently not
available due to a limitation on the number of active channels, and
the driver could fall back to PIO for that transfer.

Gr{oetje,eeting}s,

                        Geert

--
Geert Uytterhoeven -- There's lots of Linux beyond ia32 -- geert@...ux-m68k.org

In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But
when I'm talking to journalists I just say "programmer" or something like that.
                                -- Linus Torvalds