Re: [PATCH v4 2/4] serial: mxs-auart: use mctrl_gpio helpers for handling modem signals

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W dniu 2014-11-08 o 12:22, Marek Vasut pisze:
On Friday, November 07, 2014 at 05:29:33 PM, Janusz Użycki wrote:
W dniu 2014-11-07 o 15:48, Marek Vasut pisze:
On Friday, November 07, 2014 at 02:23:23 PM, Janusz Użycki wrote:
[...]

Hardware RTS/CTS lines can be occupied by RX/TX of other AUART port
in order to obtain as much uarts as possible using i.mx283.
Therefore gpios can be used for "hardware" flow control.
Your logic is outright flawed here, the first sentence doesn't
implicate the second sentence. In fact, those two are completely
unrelated.
I didn't write MUST but CAN. There is a choice. Is flexibility of the
driver disadvantage?
If the flexibility brings in known problems, then yes, it is a problem.
Not because of the flexibility, but because it brings in bugs.
New features new bugs :) Does it mean to stop development?
You shouldn't push code which is known to be defective by design into mainline.

I've written in general. The patch is not defective and it has been discussed before (V4).
Did you read the code and the patch?

      If we change them to gpio.  Could the DMA still

works fine?
did you test the DMA with this patch?

Add Marek for this patch too.
I didn't look too deep into the patch, so here's just my experience:

1) The AUART block signals and GPIO block signals are not sychronised
using the

       same clock. Therefore, the latency between toggling of the
       AUART lines and the GPIO-driven pins will not be deterministic
       and will vary. There might be a way to approximate that, but
       that's definitelly not a reliable solution.
This is very bad for example if you drive RS485 DIR line with
       the RTS pin as a GPIO ; the RTS pin will toggle at
       non-deterministic time compared to the end of UART
       transmission. This will trigger bit-loss on the RS485 line and
       you just don't want that.

2) Speaking of RS485, there's [1] and [2]. which I believe apply to
any combo

       of UART+GPIO toggling.

So I hate to bring the bad news , but UART+GPIO combo toggling is
really a bad bad idea.
Unfortunately if hardware is limited there is no choice and UART+GPIO
is necessary.
You will run into timing problems (see above).
A lot of 8250-compatible devices has no hardware flow control and in
most cases
they works and it is enough even for 115200 speed if CTS is handled by
irq. So it depends on your needs.
I presume that in such a case , the 8250 still handles the CTS line, not
some external GPIO block, yes ?
Yes. However mxs includes both GPIO and AUART. Clocks differs but it is
still the same silicon.
External GPIO block is extreme example highly not recommended here.
The way you implemented this particular change, it is possible to use arbitrary
GPIO pin. There is no way you can guarantee anything about the latency of the
GPIO toggling (I am repeating myself).

GPIO latency in SoC is usually smaller than any pin toggled in 8250 chip.
You can write some gpio-limiter patch for Richard's GPIO patch but in my opinion
it has no sense. DTB maker has to know what he is doing and why.
My patch concerns the mxs-auart driver so I can't understand
why your notes are addressed to me. You complain on much more patches in mainline,
not mine.


What you're proposing here is a workaround for broken hardware, which
was proven to be a bad idea and NAK'd already multiple times in the
past (please see the links I posted in my last email).
It is not broken  hardware - rather limited to lower speeds but still
very useful solution.
What exact "lower speed" are you talking about here and why ?
For example not more than 115200 but it depends on CPU load of course,
FIFO size
and device on the opposite site. RTS/CTS via GPIO require to know the limit
in an application.
OK, this is completely unreliable solution, which works just by sheer luck.

I googled even so exotic thing like:
"8250: add support for DTR/DSR hardware flow control"
The fact that those perversions exists doesn't make them right. It doesn't
even make them mainlinable.

Again, not addressed to me. The world has accepted them.


Your experience confirms the discussion [3] with Russell King. DMA
should be disabled and
the patch disables DMA support in mxs_auart_init_gpios() if RTS or CTS
line is set as gpio.
DMA has nothing to do with those problems here. DMA can be safely
ignored for the purpose of the discussion altogether.
When gpios are used for RTS/CTS DMA is not used. However DMA is related
due to the driver
and "fsl,uart-has-rtscts". If you look into code of the driver you
should agree.
This makes me believe that the DMA introduces too many timing
fluctuations, so it's really not possible for you to keep toggling the
GPIOs such that the bus would work. Is that the case ?
Yes, for RTS/CTS based on gpio DMA is not used. They are just toggled.
So you probably misunderstood me.
I understand you -- in case DMA is enabled on the AUART block, your hack
is no longer capable to working correctly, so everything falls apart.

You still didn't read the code or not carefully :)
If RTS/CTS aren't set as gpio it will work exactly as before - including DMA.
Otherwise I wouldn't push the patchset.


[...]

Now the question: "fsl,uart-has-rtscts" name seems to be misleading
now, do you agree? It rather should include "dma" word in the name.
Any suggestion?

[3] http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.serial/16069/focus=16077
The best suggestion I can give you is to fix your hardware early,
before you run into nasty deep s.....tuff. These workarounds do not
work and they will bit you later on, when it's hard to fix the
hardware anymore.
The speed is limited but why don't you accept SW-HW mixed solutions?
Did you read up on the RS485 timing problems and why that solution was
never accepted for any driver ? I believe the threads explained that
quite clearly.
Example of RS485 implementation where RTS is toggled by software:
https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/next/linux-next.git/commit/dri
vers/tty/serial/omap-serial.c?id=4a0ac0f55b18dc297a87a85417fcf068658bf103
https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-stable.git/tree/
drivers/tty/serial/omap-serial.c
This is a question for Greg. I checked the discussion about this patch [1]
and I see this timing issue was brought up, but the patch was applied anyway.
I cannot tell you why , I just know that this GPIO approach has problems and
I wrestled those a couple of days ago (without success, it's not possible to
get correct timing).

[1] http://www.spinics.net/lists/linux-serial/msg10574.html

Yes, this is the question for others - tty/serial's guru.
The timming isn't great but your opinion makes impossible to work most RS485 devices, especially older but not only. You want to change the world here I think. In practive costs usually have higher value than perfect timming if a solution works great without. In the past hardware RS485 support even didn't exist. It is changing but slowly.

Exactly the same method is accepted for 8250.
Can you point out this code please ?
If 8250 doesn't support auto flow control RTS/CTS are also toggled by
software,
uart_trottle(), uart_untrothle(), uart_handle_cts_change():
http://lxr.free-electrons.com/source/drivers/tty/serial/serial_core.c#L635
http://lxr.free-electrons.com/source/drivers/tty/serial/serial_core.c#L2796
Detected by irq (ms enabled when CRTSCTS) CTS change stops tx because
UPF_HARD_FLOW flag is not set by the mxs-auart driver.
This doesn't use GPIO to toggle the RTS/CTS pins, it does toggle then via the
8250 IP block registers, right ?

Right. My patch allows to toggle the pins via SoC's pins - there is a choice in DT.
About latency I've written above.

Of course timing problem exists but in many cases it is not critical -
the toggle method was implemented many years ago and it seems to work.
Yes, it does seem to work initially, that's why so many hardware people
implement it, thinking the software people can fix those flubs. Problem
is, this is one of those nasty problems, which cannot be fixed in software.

Look into the past. And, not each application needs perfect things. Hardware people do
not expect of magic things - they must know reality better than you assume.
It seems you have young people's approach. The real world is not perfect. There are
costs, limited set of available chips, limited PCB's space, habits, etc.

The thread doesn't concern my patchset at all now :)

thanks for the nice discussion
Janusz

The only problem for me is misleading "fsl,uart-has-rtscts" name because
the flag
only enables DMA if CRTSCTS is set and hardware flow control of AUART
block is used.

best regards
Janusz

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