Hi John,

-----Original Message-----
From: John W. Linville [mailto:linville@tuxdriver.com]
Sent: Friday, August 28, 2015 6:52 PM
To: Iremonger, Bernard
Cc: dev@dpdk.org
Subject: Re: [dpdk-dev] [RFC PATCH 0/6] remove pci driver from vdevs

On Fri, Aug 28, 2015 at 08:15:47AM +0000, Iremonger, Bernard wrote:

quoted

Hi John,

quoted

-----Original Message-----
From: John W. Linville [mailto:linville@tuxdriver.com]
Sent: Thursday, August 27, 2015 6:44 PM
To: Iremonger, Bernard
Cc: dev@dpdk.org
Subject: Re: [dpdk-dev] [RFC PATCH 0/6] remove pci driver from vdevs

On Thu, Aug 27, 2015 at 04:40:35PM +0100, Bernard Iremonger wrote:

quoted

There is a dummy pci driver in the vdev PMD's at present.
This RFC proposes to remove the pci driver from the vdev PMD's.
Changes have been made to librte_ether to handle vdevs which do
not

have a pci driver.

quoted

The pdev PMD's should work as before with the changes to
librte_ether The vdev PMD's which still have a pci driver should
work as before with the

librte_ether changes.

quoted

The following vdev PMD's have had the  pci driver removed

bonding PMD
null PMD
pcap PMD
ring PMD

Any reason there is no patch for the af_packet driver?

John

I have just modified the Intel vdev PMD's.
It would be best if the owners of the non Intel vdev's submitted patches

for their drivers.

What constitutes an "Intel vdev PMD"?  I thought these were all part of the
DPDK project?  It seems odd to me for you to pick and choose like this.

I should probably have written vdev PMD's contributed by Intel.
I am not familiar with the other vdev PMD's and thought it best that they should be modified by their owners/maintainers if required.

What is the overall purpose of this RFC? 

The purpose of this RFC is to remove the need for a PCI device driver from Vdev's that that do not use a PCI driver.  Removing the PCI driver is implemented in the ethdev changes. I have modified some of the Vdev's to verify that the ethdev changes work.

What benefit accrues to those vdev
PMDs that implement this change?  What penalty is imposed on those that
do not change?

6Wind have decided that only cleanup patches will be allowed in future for Vdevs that have a dummy PCI driver. Any change in functionality for these Vdevs will not be allowed.
Please see email below from 6Wind

http://dpdk.org/ml/archives/dev/2015-July/022107.html

John
--
John W. Linville		Someday the world will need a hero, and you
linville@tuxdriver.com			might be all we have.  Be ready.

Regards,

Bernard.