Messages in this thread | | | From | John Stultz <> | Date | Thu, 9 Feb 2023 11:50:49 -0800 | Subject | Re: [PATCH 0/3] Support timer drivers as loadable modules |
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On Thu, Feb 9, 2023 at 7:36 AM Daniel Lezcano <daniel.lezcano@linaro.org> wrote: > > On 08/02/2023 10:48, walter.chang@mediatek.com wrote: > > From: Walter Chang <walter.chang@mediatek.com> > > > > This patch exports functions in kernel so that timer drivers, > > such as timer-mediatek.c can become loadable modules in GKI. > > What for ?
In general, it's the same reason why modules exist: We want to be able to support a wide array of devices with a single kernel, but we don't want all devices to pay the memory cost of code that will never be used there. So being able to support loading device-specific bits like clocksources (along with other device specific logic) helps. Obviously it still has to make sense, and others have raised concerns of stability issues if the hardware support is needed before we can get to module loading, but I think if this allows drivers (such as timer-mediatek) to be loadable safely, I see it as beneficial.
(And as others pointed out: this patch series is incomplete as it doesn't modularize the timer-mediatek driver, which would be a prereq to supporting it upstream)
thanks -john
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