Re: [RFC PATCH v3 0/7] Add virtio_rtc module and related changes

From: Alexandre Belloni
Date: Wed Mar 13 2024 - 10:51:17 EST


On 13/03/2024 14:06:42+0000, David Woodhouse wrote:
> If you're asking why patch 7/7 in Peter's series exists to expose the
> virtio clock through RTC, and you're not particularly interested in the
> first six, I suppose that's a fair question. As is the question of "why
> is it called virtio_rtc not virtio_ptp?".
>

Exactly my question, thanks :)

> But let me turn it around: if the kernel has access to this virtio
> device and *not* any other RTC, why *wouldn't* the kernel use the time
> from it? The fact that it can optionally *also* provide paired readings
> with the CPU counter doesn't actually *hurt* for the RTC use case, does
> it?

As long as it doesn't behave differently from the other RTC, I'm fine
with this. This is important because I don't want to carry any special
infrastructure for this driver or to have to special case this driver
later on because it is incompatible with some evolution of the
subsystem.

--
Alexandre Belloni, co-owner and COO, Bootlin
Embedded Linux and Kernel engineering
https://bootlin.com