Re: [PATCH] char: nvram: disable on ARM
From: Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de>
Date: 2018-02-06 22:55:02
Also in:
lkml
On Tue, Feb 6, 2018 at 11:05 PM, Alexandre Belloni [off-list ref] wrote:
quoted hunk
/dev/nvram was never meant to be used alongside the RTC CMOS driver from drivers/rtc as it already expose the NVRAM through another interface.. Anyway, the last defconfig to enable it properly was removed in 2010 so prevent ARM users from selecting it. Signed-off-by: Alexandre Belloni <alexandre.belloni@bootlin.com> --- drivers/char/Kconfig | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)diff --git a/drivers/char/Kconfig b/drivers/char/Kconfig index c28dca0c613d..9bcac927cfd0 100644 --- a/drivers/char/Kconfig +++ b/drivers/char/Kconfig@@ -264,7 +264,7 @@ source "drivers/char/hw_random/Kconfig" config NVRAM tristate "/dev/nvram support" - depends on ATARI || X86 || (ARM && RTC_DRV_CMOS) || GENERIC_NVRAM + depends on ATARI || X86 || GENERIC_NVRAM ---help--- If you say Y here and create a character special file /dev/nvram with major number 10 and minor number 144 using mknod ("man mknod"),
The change looks good:
Acked-by: Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de>
but taking a closer look raises a few other points:
* arch/arm/kernel/time.c has this code
#if defined(CONFIG_RTC_DRV_CMOS) || defined(CONFIG_RTC_DRV_CMOS_MODULE) || \
defined(CONFIG_NVRAM) || defined(CONFIG_NVRAM_MODULE)
/* this needs a better home */
DEFINE_SPINLOCK(rtc_lock);
EXPORT_SYMBOL(rtc_lock);
#endif /* pc-style 'CMOS' RTC support */
That can be adapted now, or maybe we could move all definitions into
a common place (that needs some more planning).
* similarly, this line in nvram.c can be simplified:
#if defined(CONFIG_ATARI)
# define MACH ATARI
#elif defined(__i386__) || defined(__x86_64__) || defined(__arm__) /* and ?? */
# define MACH PC
#else
# error Cannot build nvram driver for this machine configuration.
#endif
* GENERIC_NVRAM is not really generic, instead this seems to be the
chardev that is used for 32-bit powerpc (powermac, 85xx, 86xx), while
64-bit powerpc (cell, maple, opal, pseries) use code from
arch/powerpc/kernel/nvram_64.c, with the same underlying arch hooks.
The nvram_64 code appears to be mostly a superset of the 32-bit
generic_nvram one.
* The code in drivers/char/nvram is not used at all when
GENERIC_NVRAM is set, and half the code in there is different
between x86 and atari.
* most of the external interface in include/linux/nvram.h is
unused, the rest tends to be architecture specific
* The procfs file appears to be completely useless on any 64-bit
x86 machine, this is what I see:
$ cat /proc/driver/nvram
Checksum status: valid
# floppies : 0
Floppy 0 type : none
Floppy 1 type : none
HD 0 type : none
HD 1 type : none
HD type 48 data: 0/0/0 C/H/S, precomp 0, lz 0
HD type 49 data: 156/0/0 C/H/S, precomp 0, lz 0
DOS base memory: 635 kB
Extended memory: 65535 kB (configured), 65535 kB (tested)
Gfx adapter : EGA, VGA, ... (with BIOS)
FPU : not installed
Arnd