Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2010 18:30:02 +0900
To: g.liakhovetski@gmx.de
Cc: fujita.tomonori@lab.ntt.co.jp, mitov@issp.bas.bg,
        linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, linux-media@vger.kernel.org,
        akpm@linux-foundation.org, linux-arm-kernel@lists.infradead.org,
        linux-sh@vger.kernel.org, u.kleine-koenig@pengutronix.de,
        philippe.retornaz@epfl.ch, gregkh@suse.de, jkrzyszt@tis.icnet.pl
Subject: Re: [RFC][PATCH] add
 dma_reserve_coherent_memory()/dma_free_reserved_memory() API
From: FUJITA Tomonori <fujita.tomonori@lab.ntt.co.jp>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.64.1008261100150.14167@axis700.grange>
References: <201008260904.19973.mitov@issp.bas.bg>
	<20100826152333K.fujita.tomonori@lab.ntt.co.jp>
	<Pine.LNX.4.64.1008261100150.14167@axis700.grange>
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On Thu, 26 Aug 2010 11:06:20 +0200 (CEST)
Guennadi Liakhovetski <g.liakhovetski@gmx.de> wrote:

> On Thu, 26 Aug 2010, FUJITA Tomonori wrote:
> 
> > On Thu, 26 Aug 2010 09:04:14 +0300
> > Marin Mitov <mitov@issp.bas.bg> wrote:
> > 
> > > On Thursday, August 26, 2010 08:40:47 am FUJITA Tomonori wrote:
> > > > On Fri, 20 Aug 2010 14:50:12 +0300
> > > > Marin Mitov <mitov@issp.bas.bg> wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > > On Friday, August 20, 2010 11:35:06 am FUJITA Tomonori wrote:
> > > > > > On Fri, 20 Aug 2010 11:13:45 +0300
> > > > > > Marin Mitov <mitov@issp.bas.bg> wrote:
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > > > > This tric is already used in drivers/staging/dt3155v4l.c
> > > > > > > > > dt3155_alloc_coherent()/dt3155_free_coherent()
> > > > > > > > > 
> > > > > > > > > Here proposed for general use by popular demand from video4linux folks.
> > > > > > > > > Helps for videobuf-dma-contig framework.
> > > > > > > > 
> > > > > > > > What you guys exactly want to do? If you just want to pre-allocate
> > > > > > > > coherent memory for latter usage,
> > > > > > > 
> > > > > > > Yes, just to preallocate not coherent, but rather contiguous memory for latter usage.
> > > > > > > We use coherent memory because it turns out to be contiguous.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > Hmm, you don't care about coherency? You just need contiguous memory?
> > > > > 
> > > > > Yes. We just need contiguous memory. Coherency is important as far as when dma
> > > > > transfer finishes user land is able to see the new data. Could be done by something like
> > > > > dma_{,un}map_single()
> > > > 
> > > > Then, we should avoid using coherent memory as I exaplained before. In
> > > > addition, dma_alloc_coherent can't provide large enough contigous
> > > > memory for some drivers so this patch doesn't help much.
> > > 
> > > Please, look at drivers/media/video/videobuf-dma-contig.c. Using coherent memory
> > > is inavoidable for now, there is no alternative for it for now. The two new functions,
> > > which I propose are just helpers for those of us who already use coherent memory
> > > (via videobuf-dma-contig API). May be adding these two functions to 
> > > drivers/media/video/videobuf-dma-contig.c will be better solution?
> > 
> > If you add something to the videobuf-dma-contig API, that's fine by me
> > because drivers/media/video/videobuf-dma-contig.c uses the own
> > structure and plays with dma_alloc_coherent. As long as a driver
> > doesn't touch device->dma_mem directly, it's fine, I think (that is,
> > dt3155v4l driver is broken). There are already some workarounds for
> > contigous memory in several drivers anyway.
> 
> No, this will not work - this API has to be used from board code and 
> videobuf can be built modular.
> 
> > We will have the proper API for contiguous memory. I don't think that
> > adding such workaround to the DMA API is a good idea.
> 
> We have currently a number of boards broken in the mainline. They must be 
> fixed for 2.6.36. I don't think the mentioned API will do this for us. So, 
> as I suggested earlier, we need either this or my patch series
> 
> http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.ports.sh.devel/8595
> 
> for 2.6.36.

Why can't you revert a commit that causes the regression?

The related DMA API wasn't changed in 2.6.36-rc1. The DMA API is not
responsible for the regression. And the patchset even exnteds the
definition of the DMA API (dma_declare_coherent_memory). Such change
shouldn't applied after rc1. I think that DMA-API.txt says that
dma_declare_coherent_memory() handles coherent memory for a particular
device. It's not for the API that reserves coherent memory that can be
used for any device for a single device.
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