Re: [PATCH v2] clocksource: arch_timer: Allow the device tree to specify the physical timer

On 09/15/14 04:10, Catalin Marinas wrote:

On Fri, Sep 12, 2014 at 07:59:29PM +0100, Stephen Boyd wrote:

quoted

On 09/12/14 05:14, Marc Zyngier wrote:

quoted

We surely can handle the UNDEF and do something there. We just can't do
it the way Doug described it above.

I suggested doing that for something else a while ago and Will and Dave
we're not thrilled[1]. The suggestion back then was to use DT to
indicate what mode the kernel is running in.

[1]
http://lists.infradead.org/pipermail/linux-arm-kernel/2012-June/105321.html

I think the context was slightly different. As I re-read the thread, it
seems that the discussion was around whether to use some SMC interface
or not based on whether the kernel is running secure or non-secure. The
argument made by Will was to actually specify the type of the firmware
SMC interface in the DT and use it in the kernel (and probably assume
the kernel is running in secure mode if no smc interface is specified in
the DT; you could have both though, running in secure mode and also
having firmware).

In this arch timer case, we need to work around a firmware bug (or
feature as 32-bit ARM kernels never required CNTVOFF initialisation by
firmware, no matter how small such firmware is). We don't expect a
specific SMC call to initialise CNTVOFF, so we can't describe it in the
DT.

Agreed, we can't described SMC calls that don't exist. From my
perspective it's just another part of the cpu boot sequence that needs
to be handled in the kernel, so describing the requirement via the
cpu-boot method seems appropriate. It seems like we're making it harder
than it should be by handling the undef when we could have slightly
different SMP boot code (and suspend/resume code) depending on the boot
method property.

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