[PATCH 0/6] drivers/dma: drop modular code from non modular drivers

Arnd Bergmann arnd at arndb.de
Thu Dec 10 01:01:44 PST 2015


On Wednesday 09 December 2015 19:17:42 Paul Gortmaker wrote:
> [Re: [PATCH 0/6] drivers/dma: drop modular code from non modular drivers] On 10/12/2015 (Thu 00:29) Arnd Bergmann wrote:
> 
> > On Wednesday 09 December 2015 18:21:56 Paul Gortmaker wrote:
> > > This series of commits is a slice of a larger project to ensure
> > > people don't have dead code for module removal in non-modular
> > > drivers.  Overall there is roughly 5k lines of dead code in the
> > > kernel due to this.
> > > 
> > > There is a quasi-separate theme, in that some of the drivers were
> > > allowing an unbind implicitly since it is enabled by default.  But
> > > for core DMA infrastructure drivers, this doesn't seem useful -- so
> > > we also disable that here which allows us to delete any ".remove"
> > > functions from the drivers that would otherwise be called during the
> > > (impossible to trigger) module removal.
> > > 
> > > Since ARM covers these files the best of all architectures, each
> > > file was build tested for allmodconfig on ARM, which at the same
> > > time confirms that the files are not built with "CC [M]" -- hence
> > > genuinely non-modular.
> > > 
> > > My testing and the larger patch series in general has been done
> > > against the latest linux-next tree.
> > > 
> > > 
> > 
> > We are in the process of changing the DMA drivers to a new way of
> > passing the "filter" function around. We can soon build them
> > all as loadable modules again.
> 
> Hi Arnd,
> 
> Thanks for the feedback -- just to clarify, you are suggesting I hold
> on the series until I see what emerges in the next merge window?
> 
> 

It may take a few cycles, but I think we'll get there and should not
remove the unload logic from any of these drivers. When we're done,
there is no reason for a dmaengine driver to be built-in.

	Arnd



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