Thread (86 messages) 86 messages, 20 authors, 2011-01-28

Locking in the clk API

From: ben-linux@fluff.org (Ben Dooks)
Date: 2011-01-20 16:29:38
Also in: linux-sh, lkml

On 11/01/11 03:15, Paul Mundt wrote:
On Tue, Jan 11, 2011 at 10:16:42AM +0800, Jeremy Kerr wrote:
quoted
* clk_enable: may sleep

* clk_disable: may not sleep, but it's possible to make the global
  clk_disable() atomic and defer the actual disable (clk->ops.disable()) to a
  non-atomic context.

* clk_get_rate: may not sleep

* clk_set_rate: may sleep

As we build up our requirements, we can adjust as suitable.
This looks like a complete disaster, and is also completely inconsistent
with how the API is being used by the vast majority of users today. You
have an API that can or can not sleep with no indication as to which is
which based off of the API naming, which is just asking for trouble.

As it is today, most users expect that these are all usable from atomic
context, and as far as I can tell the only special case you have are for
some crap busses with insane latencies. In this case you should simply
pile on _cansleep() versions of the API and make it apparent that those
drivers are the special cases, not the other way around.
The trouble is not with the drivers, is the fact there could be a clock
tree where, say the closest to the driver is easy to control but the
base of the tree may be a PLL which requires time to settle.

Now, there's a lot of work in the 'embedded' space where the focus is on
the power consumption, so powering down PLLs when they are not needed is
a good thing to have/
Having half of the API sleepable and the other not with no indication of
which is which simply makes it completely unusable and error prone for
both atomic and non-atomic contexts.
I really don't like the fact that people are doing these things in
atomic contexts, and I think we should apply some pressure to move
the atomic caller cases to use systems where they can sleep such as
using threaded-irq handlers (they work very nicely)
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