Re: [PATCH v2 0/7] [PATCH v2 0/7] Add support of OV9655 camera

[Sakari Ailus]

On Tue, Jul 18, 2017 at 12:53:12PM +0000, Hugues FRUCHET wrote:
> 
> 
> On 07/18/2017 02:17 PM, H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> >> Am 18.07.2017 um 13:59 schrieb Hans Verkuil <hverkuil@xxxxxxxxx>:
> >>
> >> On 12/07/17 22:01, Sylwester Nawrocki wrote:
> >>> Hi Hugues,
> >>>
> >>> On 07/03/2017 11:16 AM, Hugues Fruchet wrote:
> >>>> This patchset enables OV9655 camera support.
> >>>>
> >>>> OV9655 support has been tested using STM32F4DIS-CAM extension board
> >>>> plugged on connector P1 of STM32F746G-DISCO board.
> >>>> Due to lack of OV9650/52 hardware support, the modified related code
> >>>> could not have been checked for non-regression.
> >>>>
> >>>> First patches upgrade current support of OV9650/52 to prepare then
> >>>> introduction of OV9655 variant patch.
> >>>> Because of OV9655 register set slightly different from OV9650/9652,
> >>>> not all of the driver features are supported (controls). Supported
> >>>> resolutions are limited to VGA, QVGA, QQVGA.
> >>>> Supported format is limited to RGB565.
> >>>> Controls are limited to color bar test pattern for test purpose.
> >>>
> >>> I appreciate your efforts towards making a common driver but IMO it would be
> >>> better to create a separate driver for the OV9655 sensor.  The original driver
> >>> is 1576 lines of code, your patch set adds half of that (816).  There are
> >>> significant differences in the feature set of both sensors, there are
> >>> differences in the register layout.  I would go for a separate driver, we
> >>> would then have code easier to follow and wouldn't need to worry about possible
> >>> regressions.  I'm afraid I have lost the camera module and won't be able
> >>> to test the patch set against regressions.
> >>>
> >>> IMHO from maintenance POV it's better to make a separate driver. In the end
> >>> of the day we wouldn't be adding much more code than it is being done now.
> >>
> >> I agree. We do not have great experiences in the past with trying to support
> >> multiple variants in a single driver (unless the diffs are truly small).
> > 
> > Well,
> > IMHO the diffs in ov965x are smaller (but untestable because nobody seems
> > to have an ov9650/52 board) than within the bq27xxx chips, but I can dig out
> > an old pdata based separate ov9655 driver and extend that to become DT compatible.
> > 
> > I had abandoned that separate approach in favour of extending the ov965x driver.
> > 
> > Have to discuss with Hugues how to proceed.
> > 
> > BR and thanks,
> > Nikolaus
> > 
> 
> As Sylwester and Hans, I'm also in flavour of a separate driver, the 
> fact that register set seems similar but in fact is not and that we 
> cannot test for non-regression of 9650/52 are killer for me to continue 
> on a single driver.
> We can now restart from a new fresh state of the art sensor driver 
> getting rid of legacy (pdata, old gpio, etc...).

Agreed. I bet the result will look cleaner indeed although this wasn't one
of the complex drivers.

It'd be nice that someone was able to test the ov9650/2, too, drivers that
are never used tend to break...

-- 
Sakari Ailus
e-mail: sakari.ailus@xxxxxx	XMPP: sailus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx