> In any case, although Bjørn made a good point about latency, the main > reason for having the sysfs interface was to cope with buggy devices. > Linux started using runtime PM before Windows did. At that time, many > devices did not support runtime suspend very well -- they didn't have > to since Windows didn't use it. Plenty of devices simply couldn't > handle it. Too many for a blacklist. > > So we pushed the decision about whether to enable runtime PM out to > userspace. There was no other choice; too many people were having too > many problems when runtime PM was automatically on. > >> What would make sense to me, is to move the runtime PM sysfs to >> debugfs, because it is a good feature to make use of during >> development and debugging. > > But since it is primarily needed for device control by the user, it > belongs in sysfs. > Got it! Thanks for giving me the history to better understand why the sysfs exists. <snip> >> >> So as a way forward, I am thinking of a similar approach as you >> >> suggested with the "generic" suspend_late. But instead add a new >> >> runtime PM API, which intent is to let drivers to specify for PM core, >> >> if it should care to prevent the runtime suspend from happen during >> >> system system - or not. Could that work? >> > >> > I don't see what good it would do. Instead of adding a new flag, why >> > not just let drivers point their .suspend_late methods to the new >> > generic function? That would accomplish almost the same thing without >> > changing the API. >> >> Two minor functions will be added to the API, no big deal I think. >> More importantly these will actually make life easier for some drivers >> since they don't need to set up any additional PM callbacks. >> >> Using the generic suspend_late approach would for sure work, but it >> will spread to buses and power domains as well, which is not the case >> when adding when adding a new API. > > I don't understand what you mean by "spread to". That makes it sound > like an infectious disease rather than a subroutine. :-) > > Also, I don't see how adding one line for an extra callback pointer is > any harder than adding one line to call pm_runtime_no_prevent_suspend. > I favour the pm_runtime_no_prevent_suspend API approach, since it would mean a change in behaviour of the PM core. I also think that in some cases it could make runtime PM better understandable, for those who are deploying it. Another advantage of "pm_runtime_no_prevent_suspend" is that driver's can still easily prevent runtime suspend, during system suspend, by an extra call to "pm_runtime_get*". Typically this could be used when the device is configured for wakeup. In this case the generic suspend_late approach would not work, since the driver would need to implement it's own .suspend_late callback to handle this. Kind regards Ulf Hansson >> > (Actually, it would be superior. The generic suspend_late approach >> > will work even if the user writes "on" to /sys/.../power/control, >> > whereas your approach won't work.) >> >> We have different view here. :-) >> >> Whether I like it or not, the sysfs interface exist and then I think >> the kernel must act accordingly. We shouldn’t override it. I mean if >> userspace has decided to keep a device active, there is probably a >> reason. >> >> >> Thanks a lot Alan for being patient with me and continuing the discussion! > > My pleasure. > > Alan Stern > -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-pci" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
