2010/5/25 Kevin Hilman <khilman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>: > Arve Hjønnevåg <arve@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes: > >> 2010/5/25 Dmitry Torokhov <dmitry.torokhov@xxxxxxxxx>: >>> On Tue, May 25, 2010 at 03:23:23PM -0700, Arve Hjønnevåg wrote: >>>> On Tue, May 25, 2010 at 11:47 AM, Dmitry Torokhov >>>> <dmitry.torokhov@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: >>>> > On Tue, May 25, 2010 at 02:35:17PM -0400, Alan Stern wrote: >>>> >> On Tue, 25 May 2010, Dmitry Torokhov wrote: >>>> >> >>>> >> > > Here's the scenario: >>>> >> > > >>>> >> > > The system is awake, and the user presses a key. The keyboard driver >>>> >> > > processes the keystroke and puts it in an input queue. A user process >>>> >> > > reads it from the event queue, thereby emptying the queue. >>>> >> > > >>>> >> > > At that moment, the system decides to go into opportunistic suspend. >>>> >> > > Since the input queue is empty, there's nothing to stop it. As the >>>> >> > > first step, userspace is frozen -- before the process has a chance to >>>> >> > > do anything with the keystroke it just read. As a result, the system >>>> >> > > stays asleep until something else wakes it up, even though the >>>> >> > > keystroke was important and should have prevented it from sleeping. >>>> >> > > >>>> >> > > Suspend blockers protect against this scenario. Here's how: >>>> >> > > >>>> >> > > The user process doesn't read the input queue directly; instead it >>>> >> > > does a select or poll. When it sees there is data in the queue, it >>>> >> > > first acquires a suspend blocker and then reads the data. >>>> >> > > >>>> >> > > Now the system _can't_ go into opportunistic suspend, because a suspend >>>> >> > > blocker is active. The user process can do whatever it wants with the >>>> >> > > keystroke. When it is finished, it releases the suspend blocker and >>>> >> > > loops back to the select/poll call. >>>> >> > > >>>> >> > >>>> >> > What you describe can be done in userspace though, via a "suspend manager" >>>> >> > process. Tasks reading input events will post "busy" events to stop the >>>> >> > manager process from sending system into suspend. But this can be confined to >>>> >> > Android userspace, leaving the kernel as is (well, kernel needs to be modified >>>> >> > to not go into suspend with full queues, but that is using existing kernel >>>> >> > APIs). >>>> >> >>>> >> I think that could be made to work. And it might remove the need for >>>> >> the userspace suspend-blocker API, which would be an advantage. It >>>> >> could even remove the need for the opportunistic-suspend workqueue -- >>>> >> opportunistic suspends would be initiated by the "suspend manager" >>>> >> process instead of by the kernel. >>>> >> >>>> >> However you still have the issue of modifying the kernel drivers to >>>> >> disallow opportunistic suspend if their queues are non-empty. Doing >>>> >> that is more or less equivalent to implementing kernel-level suspend >>>> >> blockers. (The suspend blocker approach is slightly more efficient, >>>> >> because it will prevent a suspend from starting if a queue is >>>> >> non-empty, instead of allowing the suspend to start and then aborting >>>> >> it partway through.) >>>> >> >>>> >> Maybe I'm missing something here... No doubt someone will point it out >>>> >> if I am. >>>> >> >>>> > >>>> > Well, from my perspective that would limit changes to the evdev driver >>>> > (well, limited input core plumbing will be needed) but that is using the >>>> > current PM infrastructure. The HW driver changes will be limited to what >>>> > you described "type 2" in your other e-mail. >>>> > >>>> > Also, not suspending while events are in progress) is probably >>>> > beneficial for platforms other than Android as well. So unless I am >>>> > missing something this sounds like a win. >>>> > >>>> >>>> How would this limit the changes you need in the evdev driver? It need >>>> to block suspend when there are unprocessed events in some queues. >>>> Suspend blockers gives you an api to do this, without it, you check >>>> the queues in your suspend hook and abort suspend if they are not >>>> empty. Without suspend blockers you have no api to signal that it is >>>> OK to suspend again, so you are forcing the thread that tried to >>>> suspend to poll until you stop aborting suspend. >>> >>> No, you do not need to poll. You just set a timeout (short or long, >>> depending on your needs) and if no userspace task blocked suspend >>> durng that time you attempt to initiate suspend from your manager >>> process. If it succeeds - good, if not that means that more events came >>> your way and you have to do it later. >>> >> >> How is that not polling? If the user is holding down a key, the keypad >> driver has to block suspend, and user space will try to suspend again >> and again and again... > > Then the userspace suspend manager should be a little more clever > and should not blindly retry continuously. > > It should be more like a governor which makes some simple decisions > based on previous events, simple heuristics, uses timeouts etc., > So instead of the kernel suspending as soon as the last driver stops blocking suspend, you want to add heuristics in user-space to guess when suspend will succeed. This would, in my opinion, be a much worse solution. -- Arve Hjønnevåg -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-doc" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html