Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1751413AbWEDVaQ (ORCPT ); Thu, 4 May 2006 17:30:16 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1751412AbWEDVaP (ORCPT ); Thu, 4 May 2006 17:30:15 -0400 Received: from mx1.redhat.com ([66.187.233.31]:43191 "EHLO mx1.redhat.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751408AbWEDVaM (ORCPT ); Thu, 4 May 2006 17:30:12 -0400 Subject: Re: Add a "enable" sysfs attribute to the pci devices to allow userspace (Xorg) to enable devices without doing foul direct access From: Peter Jones To: Martin Mares Cc: Jon Smirl , Matthew Garrett , Bjorn Helgaas , linux-pci@atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz, Dave Airlie , Andrew Morton , greg@kroah.com, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Arjan van de Ven In-Reply-To: References: <1146300385.3125.3.camel@laptopd505.fenrus.org> <200605041309.53910.bjorn.helgaas@hp.com> <445A51F1.9040500@linux.intel.com> <200605041326.36518.bjorn.helgaas@hp.com> <9e4733910605041340r65d47209h2da079d9cf8fceae@mail.gmail.com> <1146776736.27727.11.camel@localhost.localdomain> Content-Type: text/plain Organization: Red Hat, Inc. Date: Thu, 04 May 2006 17:29:57 -0400 Message-Id: <1146778197.27727.26.camel@localhost.localdomain> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Evolution 2.6.1 (2.6.1-2) Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1415 Lines: 34 On Thu, 2006-05-04 at 23:17 +0200, Martin Mares wrote: > Hello! > > > > This is yet another way that user space can mess up the kernel. If VGA > > > routing is changes under fbdev (my attribute notifies fbdev, the fbdev > > > code for processing the notification did get checked in) then the > > > console will screw up. > > > > And this change allows userland to avoid doing that. > > Could you explain how? I don't see how adding a "enable" attribute > to sysfs can solve these problems. By allowing tools to read the rom from the pci device itself, instead of whichever device's rom happens to be at 0xC0000. libx86emul allows you to define routines that it uses for memory access, so you can copy the ROM out to normal memory, and map that memory to the appropriate address that way. X and vbetool both already have to do this, but without copying the firmware image, to do DDC probing on x86_64. > I agree with Arjan that the attribute could be useful for some special > tools, but using it in X is likely to be utterly wrong. I'm actually talking about vbetool here, though X could use these methods. Indeed, libx86emul comes from X itself. -- Peter - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/