Board level compatibility matching

[Jon Smirl]

On 7/31/08, David Gibson <david at gibson.dropbear.id.au> wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 31, 2008 at 04:58:34PM -0400, Jon Smirl wrote:
>  > On 7/31/08, Grant Likely <grant.likely at secretlab.ca> wrote:
>  > > On Thu, Jul 31, 2008 at 04:49:49PM -0400, Jon Smirl wrote:
>  > >  > On 7/31/08, Grant Likely <grant.likely at secretlab.ca> wrote:
>  > >  > > This topic keeps coming up, so it is probably time to address it once
>  > >  > >  and for all.
>  > >  > >
>  > >  > >  When it comes to machine level support in arch/powerpc, there seems to
>  > >  > >  me that there are two levels or machine support.
>  > >  > >
>  > >  > ......
>  > >  > >
>  > >  > >  Thoughts?
>  > >  > >  g.
>  > >  >
>  > >  >
>  > >  > As part of this, how can we going to solve the problem with triggering
>  > >  > the load of a board specific machine/fabric driver in a generic way?
>  > >
>  > >
>  > > That really is a separate problem.  We *could* do this with a board
>  > >  specific powerpc machine driver, but I don't think it is the best
>  > >  solution.
>  > >
>  > >  I'm still thinking that the drivers module_init() function could check
>  > >  the top level board model property and decide whether or not to load
>  > >  based on that.
>  >
>  > You're assuming the driver is compiled in.
>  >
>  > If the drivers are on initrd selection has to happen via the normal
>  > device/driver matching process. Search for a device in the alias table
>  > of the drive file.
>
>
> This can still be done via the board platform code.  The platform code
>  creates a platform device which the driver can later bind to.

That is what I'm doing now. But it requires every board to add a file
to arch/powerpc/platforms.  Can we have some common code to make the
fabric device? Can it be an OF device instead of a platform one? An OF
device could be compatible with boardname-fabric, generic-fabric. That
allows a stub fabric driver to always bind.

>
>
>
>  --
>  David Gibson                    | I'll have my music baroque, and my code
>  david AT gibson.dropbear.id.au  | minimalist, thank you.  NOT _the_ _other_
>                                 | _way_ _around_!
>  http://www.ozlabs.org/~dgibson
>


-- 
Jon Smirl
jonsmirl at gmail.com