Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1751003AbWEEU1q (ORCPT ); Fri, 5 May 2006 16:27:46 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1751206AbWEEU1q (ORCPT ); Fri, 5 May 2006 16:27:46 -0400 Received: from cantor.suse.de ([195.135.220.2]:29858 "EHLO mx1.suse.de") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751003AbWEEU1p (ORCPT ); Fri, 5 May 2006 16:27:45 -0400 Date: Fri, 5 May 2006 13:26:03 -0700 From: Greg KH To: Jon Smirl Cc: Ian Romanick , Dave Airlie , Arjan van de Ven , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Add a "enable" sysfs attribute to the pci devices to allow userspace (Xorg) to enable devices without doing foul direct access Message-ID: <20060505202603.GB6413@kroah.com> References: <200605041326.36518.bjorn.helgaas@hp.com> <9e4733910605041340r65d47209h2da079d9cf8fceae@mail.gmail.com> <1146776736.27727.11.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1146778197.27727.26.camel@localhost.localdomain> <9e4733910605041438q5bf3569bs129bf2e8851b7190@mail.gmail.com> <1146784923.4581.3.camel@localhost.localdomain> <445BA584.40309@us.ibm.com> <9e4733910605051314jb681476y4b2863918dfae1f8@mail.gmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <9e4733910605051314jb681476y4b2863918dfae1f8@mail.gmail.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.11 Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1057 Lines: 24 On Fri, May 05, 2006 at 04:14:00PM -0400, Jon Smirl wrote: > I would like to see other design alternatives considered on this > issue. The 'enable' attribute has a clear problem in that you can't > tell which user space program is trying to control the device. > Multiple programs accessing the video hardware with poor coordination > is already the source of many problems. Who cares who "enabled" the device. Remember, the majority of PCI devices in the system are not video ones. Lots of other types of devices want this ability to enable PCI devices from userspace. I've been talking with some people about how to properly write PCI drivers in userspace, and this attribute is a needed part of it. And if X gets enabling the device wrong, again, who cares, it's not a kernel issue. :) thanks, greg k-h - 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/