Messages in this thread | | | Date | Wed, 17 Dec 2003 11:44:27 -0600 | From | Dan Hopper <> | Subject | Re: PCI Express support for 2.4 kernel |
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Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org> remarked: > > On Wed, 17 Dec 2003, Geert Uytterhoeven wrote: > > > > For the record: PCI Express is _not_ PCI-X. > > Ok, but "PCI Express" is too damn long to write, so we'll have to have > _some_ sane name for it without typing for half an hour.
FWIW, "PCI-E" is in common use in these parts.
Also, wrt the config space backward compatibility issue, it is my understanding that the PCI-E root complex and PCI-E devices can be enumerated and used successfully with no software changes, within the constraints of PCI. The BIOS or OS should be able to enumerate devices, probe BARs and assign resources, perform basic error handling, etc. without any PCI-E-specific changes.
The hardware is required to be able to initialize PCI-E links, set things up to sane states, and so forth without software assistance in order to make this magic happen. It would be interesting to hear from Vladimir as to whether or not this is happening with his PCI-E test system.
Having said all that, it's obviously preferable to end up with native OS and BIOS support for the PCI-E extended configuration space, extra error reporting mechanisms, etc. Native PCI-E devices hanging off the bus somewhere might not work (or, at least, work well) with an OS that doesn't grok the PCI-E extensions.
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