linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v2 12/15] ath10k: use new module_firmware

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Date:   Wed, 20 May 2020 11:32:32 +0300
From:   Andy Shevchenko <andy.shevchenko@...il.com>
To:     Emmanuel Grumbach <egrumbach@...il.com>
Cc:     Brian Norris <briannorris@...omium.org>,
        Luis Chamberlain <mcgrof@...nel.org>,
        Johannes Berg <johannes@...solutions.net>,
        linux-wireless <linux-wireless@...r.kernel.org>,
        aquini@...hat.com, "Peter Zijlstra (Intel)" <peterz@...radead.org>,
        Daniel Vetter <daniel.vetter@...ll.ch>,
        Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab+samsung@...nel.org>,
        Will Deacon <will@...nel.org>, Baoquan He <bhe@...hat.com>,
        ath10k@...ts.infradead.org, Takashi Iwai <tiwai@...e.de>,
        Ingo Molnar <mingo@...hat.com>, Dave Young <dyoung@...hat.com>,
        Petr Mladek <pmladek@...e.com>,
        Kees Cook <keescook@...omium.org>,
        Arnd Bergmann <arnd@...db.de>, gpiccoli@...onical.com,
        Steven Rostedt <rostedt@...dmis.org>, cai@....pw,
        Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
        Andy Shevchenko <andriy.shevchenko@...ux.intel.com>,
        Kalle Valo <kvalo@...eaurora.org>,
        "<netdev@...r.kernel.org>" <netdev@...r.kernel.org>,
        schlad@...e.de, Linux Kernel <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        Jessica Yu <jeyu@...nel.org>,
        Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
        "David S. Miller" <davem@...emloft.net>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v2 12/15] ath10k: use new module_firmware_crashed()

On Wed, May 20, 2020 at 8:40 AM Emmanuel Grumbach <egrumbach@...il.com> wrote:

> Since I have been involved quite a bit in the firmware debugging
> features in iwlwifi, I think I can give a few insights here.
>
> But before this, we need to understand that there are several sources of issues:
> 1) the firmware may crash but the bus is still alive, you can still
> use the bus to get the crash data
> 2) the bus is dead, when that happens, the firmware might even be in a
> good condition, but since the bus is dead, you stop getting any
> information about the firmware, and then, at some point, you get to
> the conclusion that the firmware is dead. You can't get the crash data
> that resides on the other side of the bus (you may have gathered data
> in the DRAM directly, but that's a different thing), and you don't
> have much recovery to do besides re-starting the PCI enumeration.
>
> At Intel, we have seen both unfortunately. The bus issues are the ones
> that are trickier obviously. Trickier to detect (because you just get
> garbage from any request you issue on the bus), and trickier to
> handle. One can argue that the kernel should *not* handle those and
> let this in userspace hands. I guess it all depends on what component
> you ship to your customer and what you customer asks from you  :).

Or the two best approaches:
1) get rid of firmware completely;
2) make it OSS (like SOF).

I think any of these is a right thing to do in long-term perspective.

How many firmwares average computer has? 50? 100? Any of them is a
burden and PITA.

-- 
With Best Regards,
Andy Shevchenko