Re: [PATCH v10 0/5] media: atmel: atmel-isc: implement media controller

From: Jacopo Mondi
Date: Wed Jun 22 2022 - 11:47:05 EST


Hi Hans,

On Wed, Jun 22, 2022 at 04:55:27PM +0200, Hans Verkuil wrote:
> Hi Eugen, Jacopo,
>
> On 22/06/2022 16:14, Jacopo Mondi wrote:
> > Hi Hans, Eugen
> >
> > On Wed, Jun 22, 2022 at 03:47:33PM +0200, Hans Verkuil wrote:
> >> On 22/06/2022 14:42, Eugen.Hristev@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> >>> On 6/22/22 3:25 PM, Eugen Hristev - M18282 wrote:
> >>>> On 6/22/22 2:53 PM, Hans Verkuil wrote:
> >>>>> Hi Eugen,
> >>>>>
> >>>>> On 03/05/2022 11:51, Eugen Hristev wrote:
> >>>>>> This series is a split from the series :
> >>>>>> [PATCH v9 00/13] media: atmel: atmel-isc: implement media controller
> >>>>>> and it includes the media controller part.
> >>>>>> previous fixes were sent on a different patch series.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> As discussed on the ML, moving forward with having the media link validate at
> >>>>>> start/stop streaming call.
> >>>>>> I will test the patch :
> >>>>>> [RFC PATCHv2] vb2: add support for (un)prepare_streaming queue ops
> >>>>>> afterwards, but that patch requires moving my logic to the new vb2 callbacks.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I'm looking at merging this series, but I would like to have the output of
> >>>>> 'v4l2-compliance -m /dev/mediaX' to verify that the MC links etc. is all
> >>>>> correct.
> >>>>
> >>>> Hello Hans,
> >>>>
> >>>> Please have a look at attached file . Unless you want me to add the
> >>>> whole output to the e-mail ?
> >>>>
> >>>> I also added output of media-ctl -p for your convenience.
> >>>> the subdev2 is a device and driver that is not upstream and has some
> >>>> compliance issues, they are reported by the v4l2-compliance tool, but
> >>>> they should not affect this series, it's a synopsys driver that was
> >>>> rejected on mainline a few years ago, I took it for internal usage, but
> >>>> it's not cleaned up nor worked a lot upon.
> >>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> And one more question which may have been answered already in the past:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Changing to the MC will break existing applications, doesn't it? Or did I
> >>>>> miss something?
> >>>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> The existing applications will have to configure the pipeline now. It
> >>>> will no longer work by configuring just the top video node /dev/video0 .
> >>>> They would have to use media-ctl for it, something similar with this set
> >>>> of commands:
> >>>
> >>> To add on top of that, actually, the reality is that without the MC
> >>> support in atmel-isc , some of our platforms do not work at all, because
> >>> the csi2dc driver which is in the middle of the pipeline, is a MC
> >>> driver. So it will not work without configuring it with MC anyway. It
> >>> used to work in a very preliminary version of the csi2dc driver which I
> >>> sent a few years ago, but that way of handling things was rejected.
> >>> Hence I changed the csi2dc to being full-MC driver (requested for new
> >>> drivers) and now I am completing the conversion for the whole pipeline.
> >>> We are using this MC-centric approach in production for our products to
> >>> be as close as possible to mainline, and backported it to our 5.15
> >>> internal releases, which people are using right now.
> >>
> >> I'm not all that keen on breaking userspace for those who do NOT use the
> >> Atmel BSP. Basically some platforms are currently broken, and with this patch
> >> series some other platforms are broken, but at least can be fixed by changing
> >> userspace.
> >>
> >> How feasible is it to do something similar that TI did for the cal driver?
> >> (drivers/media/platform/ti/cal)
> >>
> >> I.e., based on a module option the MC is enabled or disabled. And if a
> >> csi2dc is present, then the MC API is always enabled.
> >>
> >
> > I think I have suggested Eugen to move to MC when he
> > started looking in libcamera, so sorry for the intrusion but I feel
> > a bit bad for not rising the point earlier and get him to v10
> >
> > I understand your point Hans, and when a vendor upstreaming code or a
> > user requires to maintain compatibility, the burden of keeping more
> > code in to handle the MC and non-MC cases is worth the complications.
>
> Eugen, can you provide a list of platforms that will break with this
> change and which platforms are currently broken without this series?
>
> I'm trying to get a bit of a feel of the potential problems this change
> will introduce.
>
> >
> > But if even the vendor wants to move to MC to allow more use-cases I
> > think we have to acknolege that if you're running mainline on an
> > embedded system you could expect to adjust your setup between kernel
> > updates. The idea to document the media-ctl commands required to setup
> > the pipeline it's helpful, and might help in the interim period until
> > the platform is not supported by libcamera.
>
> Well, I don't want Linus to start yelling at me for breaking userspace :-)
>
> We have broken userspace API (intentionally) in the past, but only with
> good reasons. And sometimes a driver is used so rarely that it is not worth
> the effort to try and keep compatible.
>
> As a developer I'd love to just forget about the old API, but as subsystem
> maintainer I need good arguments.

I understand and I think these are all valid concerns. Finding a
balance between new features and legacy is not easy.

>
> Another option might be to take the TI cal approach, but have warnings that
> it will be removed in, say, 2 years time. Or even make a copy of the driver
> for the old platforms, and perhaps move that to staging to be removed eventually.
>
> The idea of a sudden breakage when going from kernel K to K+1 doesn't sit
> well with me, if there was a transition period of 1-2 years then that would be
> better.
>

If staging works for you that's probably the easiest option. Let's see
what Eugen prefers!

> Regards,
>
> Hans
>
> >
> > That said, if Eugen wants to give the flag a try I won't
> > oppose :)
> >
> >
> >> Regards,
> >>
> >> Hans
> >>
> >>>
> >>>>
> >>>> media-ctl -d /dev/media0 --set-v4l2 '"imx219
> >>>> 1-0010":0[fmt:SRGGB10_1X10/1920x1080]'
> >>>> media-ctl -d /dev/media0 --set-v4l2
> >>>> '"dw-csi.0":0[fmt:SRGGB10_1X10/1920x1080]'
> >>>> media-ctl -d /dev/media0 --set-v4l2 '"csi2dc":0[fmt:SRGGB10_1X10/1920x1080]'
> >>>> media-ctl -d /dev/media0 --set-v4l2
> >>>> '"atmel_isc_scaler":0[fmt:SRGGB10_1X10/1920x1080]'
> >>>>
> >>>> Thank you for taking care of this !
> >>>>
> >>>> Eugen
> >>>>
> >>>>> Regards,
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Hans
> >>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Full series history:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Changes in v10:
> >>>>>> -> split the series into this first fixes part.
> >>>>>> -> moved IO_MC addition from first patch to the second patch on the driver changes
> >>>>>> -> edited commit messages
> >>>>>> -> DT nodes now disabled by default.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Changes in v9:
> >>>>>> -> kernel robot reported isc_link_validate is not static, changed to static.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Changes in v8:
> >>>>>> -> scaler: modified crop bounds to have the exact source size
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Changes in v7:
> >>>>>> -> scaler: modified crop bounds to have maximum isc size
> >>>>>> -> format propagation: did small changes as per Jacopo review
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Changes in v6:
> >>>>>> -> worked a bit on scaler, added try crop and other changes as per Jacopo review
> >>>>>> -> worked on isc-base enum_fmt , reworked as per Jacopo review
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Changes in v5:
> >>>>>> -> removed patch that removed the 'stop' variable as it was still required
> >>>>>> -> added two new trivial patches
> >>>>>> -> reworked some parts of the scaler and format propagation after discussions with Jacopo
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Changes in v4:
> >>>>>> -> as reviewed by Hans, added new patch to remove the 'stop' variable and reworked
> >>>>>> one patch that was using it
> >>>>>> -> as reviewed by Jacopo, reworked some parts of the media controller implementation
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Changes in v3:
> >>>>>> - change in bindings, small fixes in csi2dc driver and conversion to mc
> >>>>>> for the isc-base.
> >>>>>> - removed some MAINTAINERS patches and used patterns in MAINTAINERS
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Changes in v2:
> >>>>>> - integrated many changes suggested by Jacopo in the review of the v1 series.
> >>>>>> - add a few new patches
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Eugen Hristev (5):
> >>>>>> media: atmel: atmel-isc: prepare for media controller support
> >>>>>> media: atmel: atmel-isc: implement media controller
> >>>>>> ARM: dts: at91: sama7g5: add nodes for video capture
> >>>>>> ARM: configs: at91: sama7: add xisc and csi2dc
> >>>>>> ARM: multi_v7_defconfig: add atmel video pipeline modules
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> arch/arm/boot/dts/sama7g5.dtsi | 51 ++
> >>>>>> arch/arm/configs/multi_v7_defconfig | 3 +
> >>>>>> arch/arm/configs/sama7_defconfig | 2 +
> >>>>>> drivers/media/platform/atmel/Makefile | 2 +-
> >>>>>> drivers/media/platform/atmel/atmel-isc-base.c | 485 +++++++++---------
> >>>>>> .../media/platform/atmel/atmel-isc-scaler.c | 267 ++++++++++
> >>>>>> drivers/media/platform/atmel/atmel-isc.h | 50 +-
> >>>>>> .../media/platform/atmel/atmel-sama5d2-isc.c | 34 +-
> >>>>>> .../media/platform/atmel/atmel-sama7g5-isc.c | 32 +-
> >>>>>> 9 files changed, 685 insertions(+), 241 deletions(-)
> >>>>>> create mode 100644 drivers/media/platform/atmel/atmel-isc-scaler.c
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>
>