[Ksummit-discuss] [TECH TOPIC] ARM legacy board DT conversion finalization

[Olof Johansson]

Hi,

On Thu, May 15, 2014 at 12:42 PM, Jason Cooper <jason at lakedaemon.net> wrote:
> On Thu, May 15, 2014 at 01:50:02PM -0500, Rob Herring wrote:
>> On Thu, May 15, 2014 at 7:15 AM, Grant Likely <grant.likely at secretlab.ca> wrote:
>> > On Sun, 11 May 2014 08:37:29 -0400, Jonathan Corbet <corbet at lwn.net> wrote:
>> >> On Sat, 10 May 2014 23:00:09 -0400
>> >> Jason Cooper <jason at lakedaemon.net> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> > So, I'm proposing a session where each sub-arch gives a brief run-down
>> >> > of the status of the legacy board conversion, and wraps up with a todo
>> >> > list.  After all of the sub-arches have given their status (5 - 10
>> >> > minutes each?), we hash out helping each other with the final pieces.
>> >>
>> >> This *really* looks like an ARM minisummit topic to me; hopefully one
>> >> of those is in the works?
>> >
>> > It does, doesn't it? I wouldn't want this as a main ksummit topic.
>> >
>> > The problem with ARM minisummits these days is it is very easy to
>> > devolve into a nothing-but-dt meeting with a bunch of people sitting
>> > around looking either annoyed or bored. We weren't able to pull enough
>> > topics together when we tried to do an ARM minisummit at the ELC.
>> >
>> > Instead of a traditional ARM minisummit, perhaps we should do an ARM
>> > platforms minisprint instead. Light on any kind of presentations, but
>> > have the right people in the room to try and knock out some of the
>> > legacy backlog (which is kind of what Jason described)
>>
>> Isn't a large part of the backlog cases of we need DT bindings for X?
>> There are cases like moving platforms to common clk, but is there
>> anything to discuss for those? Most of those cases need bodies to work
>> on them. It seems like the rest of the todo lists could become an all
>> DT discussion. I'm not saying it shouldn't happen, just pointing out
>> where I think sprint discussions will go.
>
> As gregkh mentioned for the staging tree:
>
> $ ls arch/arm/*/TODO
>
> would be helpful for folks who aren't familiar with an SoC, but can
> easily generate patches.  imho, this is work for *after* the proposed
> discussion.  We don't currently have a good idea which directories to
> deprecate, convert, or leave to bit rot.  Once we do, I think the TODO
> list would be helpful.

Anyone should feel free to add a TODO file and list in their machine
directory at any given time. I don't think there's need for discussion
before that happens. There's also the elinux.org wikis if you want to
keep it out of the kernel -- keeping the TODO around for old kernel
versions might not be very useful so having it out of tree might be
just as fine.

> My main reason for raising this topic was the proximity to LinuxCon.
> There's a better chance of getting some distro representation to give us
> valuable feedback: "This SoC is quiet, no patches, but is actively used"
> and "We thought the kernel guys had a reason for keeping that one."

Funny, I would have thought ELC to have been a much more suitable
venue for that, especially since the older ARM platforms tend to be
embedded, and not generic compute ones. :)

> eg: I know ixp4xx had an active community around it at one time for the
> NSLU2, and the Gateworks boards used that SoC.  Are there people still
> running it?  Well, my Dad is, but I can fix that if needed. ;-)

I suspect it'll be hard to get that answered at LinuxCon, nor at an
ARM maintainer summit since the fringe platforms tend to not be
represented there either.


-Olof