Date: Thu, 8 Aug 2013 18:15:54 +0100
From: Mark Brown <broonie@kernel.org>
To: Guenter Roeck <linux@roeck-us.net>
Cc: Wei Ni <wni@nvidia.com>, swarren@wwwdotorg.org,
        linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, lm-sensors@lm-sensors.org,
        linux-tegra@vger.kernel.org, MLongnecker@nvidia.com,
        khali@linux-fr.org, linux-arm-kernel@lists.infradead.org
Message-ID: <20130808171554.GI6427@sirena.org.uk>
References: <1375944991-29182-1-git-send-email-wni@nvidia.com>
 <1375944991-29182-2-git-send-email-wni@nvidia.com>
 <20130808110136.GA6427@sirena.org.uk>
 <52038035.7030803@roeck-us.net>
 <20130808130840.GC6427@sirena.org.uk>
 <5203B78C.7010101@roeck-us.net>
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Subject: Re: [PATCH v2 1/3] hwmon: (lm90) Add power control
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On Thu, Aug 08, 2013 at 08:21:48AM -0700, Guenter Roeck wrote:
> On 08/08/2013 06:08 AM, Mark Brown wrote:

> >I'd be most surprised if the device worked without power, if the driver
> >fails to get and enable a regulator for it then that's not great
> >(especially if it does so silently).

> Correct, but it appears that the driver magically worked for a long time
> without it.

Sure, it'll work in systems that have always on regulators.

> Is it guaranteed that the driver keeps working for all cases where
> regulator support is enabled in the kernel, and where it used to work
> so far without mandating the existence of this specific regulator ?
> My main concern is having to deal with complaints that the driver stopped
> working for no good reason.

Sure, that's the transition issues I mentioned - the regulator API does
have stubbing facilities which should cover things and it's very easy to
define stub regulators if you need to.  Like I say I expect this to be a
lot easier after the next merge window as another way of doing stubs is
being added which should make this even easier by avoiding disrupting
drivers that do genuinely want to check for absent supplies and handle
that better.

> In this context, is it common practice to name such regulators "vdd"
> or similar ? What if there are multiple LM90 or compatible chips
> in a system, connected to different power rails ? Who determines
> if the regulator is supposed to be named "vdd" or "vcc" or anything
> else, and to which power rails it is actually connected ? How can
> and does one guarantee that "vdd" is the correct regulator to use
> for all systems ? What if some other driver requests "vdd", but the chip
> it supports happens to be connected to a different power rail ?

That's not what the name means - they are nothing to do with the board.
The names requested by a driver are defined with regard to the device
and should be the names used by the chip itself as defined in the
datasheet.  A board that uses regulators then maps these onto specific
regulators in the system, the driver doesn't need to know anything about
this process.

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