On Wed, Apr 01, 2020 at 01:47:32PM +0200, Uwe Kleine-König wrote: > On Wed, Apr 01, 2020 at 03:52:21PM +0530, Lokesh Vutla wrote: > > Hi Uwe, > > > > On 01/04/20 1:52 PM, Uwe Kleine-König wrote: > > > Hello Thierry, > > > > > > On Tue, Mar 31, 2020 at 10:45:59PM +0200, Thierry Reding wrote: > > >> On Mon, Mar 30, 2020 at 09:16:54PM +0200, Uwe Kleine-König wrote: > > >>> On Mon, Mar 30, 2020 at 04:14:36PM +0200, Thierry Reding wrote: > > >>>> On Thu, Mar 12, 2020 at 07:40:42AM +0100, Uwe Kleine-König wrote: > > >>>>> On Thu, Mar 12, 2020 at 09:52:09AM +0530, Lokesh Vutla wrote: > > >>>>>> Only the Timer control register(TCLR) cannot be updated when the timer > > >>>>>> is running. Registers like Counter register(TCRR), loader register(TLDR), > > >>>>>> match register(TMAR) can be updated when the counter is running. Since > > >>>>>> TCLR is not updated in pwm_omap_dmtimer_config(), do not stop the > > >>>>>> timer for period/duty_cycle update. > > >>>>> > > >>>>> I'm not sure what is sensible here. Stopping the PWM for a short period > > >>>>> is bad, but maybe emitting a wrong period isn't better. You can however > > >>>>> optimise it if only one of period or duty_cycle changes. > > >>>>> > > >>>>> @Thierry, what is your position here? I tend to say a short stop is > > >>>>> preferable. > > >>>> > > >>>> It's not clear to me from the above description how exactly the device > > >>>> behaves, but I suspect that it may latch the values in those registers > > >>>> and only update the actual signal output once a period has finished. I > > >>>> know of a couple of other devices that do that, so it wouldn't be > > >>>> surprising. > > >>>> > > >>>> Even if that was not the case, I think this is just the kind of thing > > >>>> that we have to live with. Sometimes it just isn't possible to have all > > >>>> supported devices adhere strictly to an API. So I think the best we can > > >>>> do is have an API that loosely defines what's supposed to happen and > > >>>> make a best effort to implement those semantics. If a device deviates > > >>>> slightly from those expectations, we can always cross fingers and hope > > >>>> that things still work. And it looks like they are. > > >>>> > > >>>> So I think if Lokesh and Tony agree that this is the right thing to do > > >>>> and have verified that things still work after this, that's about as > > >>>> good as it's going to get. > > >>> > > >>> I'd say this isn't for the platform people to decide. My position here > > >>> is that the PWM drivers should behave as uniform as possible to minimize > > >>> surprises for consumers. And so it's a "PWM decision" that is to be made > > >>> here, not an "omap decision". > > >> > > >> I think there's a fine line to be walked here. I agree that we should > > >> aim to have as much consistency between drivers as possible. At the same > > >> time I think we need to be pragmatic. As Lokesh said, the particular use > > >> case here requires this type of on-the-fly adjustment of the PWM period > > >> without stopping and restarting the PWM. It doesn't work otherwise. So > > >> th alternative that you're proposing is to say that we don't support > > >> that use-case, even though it works just fine given this particular > > >> hardware. That's not really an option. > > > > > > I understand your opinion here. The situation now is that in current > > > mainline the driver stops the hardware for reconfiguration and it > > > doesn't fit Lokesh's use case so he changed to on-the-fly update > > > (accepting that maybe a wrong period is emitted). What if someone relies > > > on the old behaviour? What if in a year someone comes and claims the > > > wrong period is bad for their usecase and changes back to > > > stop-to-update? > > > > > > When I write a consumer driver, do I have a chance to know how the PWM, > > > that I happen to use, behaves? To be able to get my consumer driver > > > reliable I might need to know that however. > > > > > >>>> I know this is perhaps cheating a little, or turning a blind eye, but I > > >>>> don't know what the alternative would be. Do we want to tell people that > > >>>> a given PWM controller can't be used if it doesn't work according to our > > >>>> expectations? That's hard to argue if that controller works just fine > > >>>> for all known use-cases. > > >>> > > >>> I'd like have some official policy here which of the alternatives is the > > >>> preferred cheat. > > >>> > > >>> The situation here is that period and duty_cycle cannot be updated > > >>> atomically. So the two options are: > > >>> > > >>> - stop shortly > > >>> - update with hardware running and maybe emit a broken period > > >> > > >> I think we can already support both of those with the existing API. If > > >> a consumer wants to stop the PWM while reconfiguring, they should be > > >> able to do pwm_enable(), pwm_config(), pwm_enable() (or the atomic > > >> equivalent) and for the second case they can just do pwm_config() (or > > >> the atomic equivalent). > > > > > > Yes, the consumer can force the stop and update. But assume I'm "only" a > > > consumer driver author and I want: atomic update and if this is not > > > possible I prefer "stop-to-update" over "on-the-fly-and-maybe-faulty". > > > So I cannot benefit from a good driver/hardware that can do atomic > > > updates? Or I have to patch each driver that I actually use to use > > > stop-to-update? > > > > > >> Some hardware may actually require the PWM to be disabled before > > >> reconfiguring, so they won't be able to strictly adhere to the second > > >> use-case. > > >> > > >> But as discussed above, I don't want to strive for a lowest common > > >> denominator that would preclude some more specific use-cases from > > >> working if the hardware supports it. > > >> > > >> So I think we should aim for drivers to implement the semantics as > > >> closely as possible. If the hardware doesn't support some of these > > >> requirements strictly while a particular use-case depends on that, then > > >> that just means that the hardware isn't compatible with that use-case. > > >> Chances are that the system just isn't going to be designed to support > > >> that use-case in the first place if the hardware can't do it. > > >> > > >> The sysfs interface is a bit of a special case here because it isn't > > >> possible to know what use-cases people are going to come up with. > > > > > > In my eyes the sysfs interface isn't special here. You also don't know > > > what the OMAP PWM hardware is used for. > > > > > >> It's most likely that they'll try something and if it doesn't work > > >> they can see if a driver patch can improve things. > > > > > > So either the group who prefers "stop-to-update" or the group who > > > prefers "on-the-fly-and-maybe-faulty" has to carry a system specific > > > driver patch? > > > > > >> One possible extension that I can imagine would be to introduce some > > >> sort of capability structure that drivers can fill in to describe the > > >> behaviour of the hardware. Drivers like pwm-omap-dmtimer, for example, > > >> could describe that they are able to change the period and/or duty cycle > > >> while the PWM is on. There could be another capability bit that says > > >> that the current period will finish before new settings are applied. Yet > > >> another capability could describe that duty-cycle and period can be > > >> applied atomically. Consumers could then check those capabilities to see > > >> if they match their requirements. > > >> > > >> But then again, I think that would just make things overly complicated. > > >> None of the existing consumers need that, so it doesn't seem like there > > >> is much demand for that feature. In practice I suspect most consumers > > >> work fine despite potentially small deviations in how the PWM behaves. > > > > > > I think the status quo is what I asked about above: People use sysfs and > > > if the PWM behaves different than needed, the driver is patched and most > > > of the time not mainlined. If your focus is to support a certain > > > industrial system with a defined use case, this is fine. If however you > > > target for an universal framework that works for any combination of > > > consumer + lowlevel driver without patching (that at least is able to > > > diagnose: This PWM cannot provide what my consumer needs), this is bad. > > > Also this means that whenever a system designer changes something on > > > their machine (kernel update, different hardware, an new usecase for a > > > PWM) they might have to reverify if the given PWM driver behaves as > > > needed. > > > > > > My suggestion for now is to start documenting how the drivers behave > > > expanding how limitations are documented in some drivers. So maybe > > > change from "Limitations" to "Implementation and Hardware Details"? > > > > Does it help if a new DT property is introduced across PWM subsystem, > > representing dynamic period/duty-cycle updates. Based on this property driver > > can handle the updates. If the property is not present existing behaviour can be > > restored. This way based on the use-case things can be changed and need not > > patch the driver :). Does this sound good or you have other thoughts? > > That's something that I'd rather see in the pwm API. (Either by a rule > that drivers should prefer one or the other, or by making it > configurable.) IMHO this property doesn't belong into the hardware > description as it is a software property. > > That's not constructive though as I don't have an idea how to map this > into the API. We can already enforce disable/config/enable with the existing API. The only think that we can't enforce is that a configuration will always be applied atomically or without disabling and reenabling the PWM. One possible solution would be to extend struct pwm_state with a set of flags that can be set. For that PTP kind of applications, consumers could set some pwm_state.strict (or whatever) flag and then a driver could fail ->apply() if it doesn't support changing the period/duty- cycle atomically and without disabling the PWM first. Or it could be more fine-grained, like: state.on_the_fly = true; state.consistent = true; To specify that the PWM needs to be changed on the fly (i.e. without disabling and reenabling) and duty-cycle and period must be consistent (i.e. be applied to the signal at the same time). Some driver may be able to only respect state.on_the_fly == true but not state.consistent == true. But then again, I don't think we'll see those cases in practice, since no hardware designer is going to make a board for a PTP use-case with a PWM that doesn't support it. That said, if somebody sees value in that and can come up with a good series of patches and concrete use-cases to show how this would be useful, I'd be willing to take those patches. Thierry
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