Messages in this thread | | | Date | Wed, 4 Apr 2007 19:55:30 +1000 | From | Paul Mackerras <> | Subject | Re: [PATCH] Stop pmac_zilog from abusing 8250's device numbers. |
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Russell King writes:
> FACT: you can only have one struct console with one name.
That could be solved by having the struct console at the generic serial driver level rather than in the individual port drivers.
> FACT: there is no way to know at any particular driver registration time > how many "generic" serial ports will be available - as required for the > chardev and tty layers.
I think the thing that davem and I have in common is that we have a data structure that the firmware gives us that (at least) enumerates all of the on-board serial ports for us, thus we *can* know very early in the boot process how many "generic" serial ports will be available.
> There are very real issues that need fixing deep within the kernel > before you can even think about the possibility of *PROPERLY* supporting > all serial ports beneath one namespace.
I don't actually want to do that; I'm perfectly happy for various kinds of plug-in cards to each have their own namespace. If you're plugging in a Cyclades card for instance I think it's quite reasonable for the ports to be named /dev/ttyCn.
It's the built-in serial ports on the motherboard where I think the user should not have to know what sort of chip was used to implement the serial port. We don't require users to know whether the manufacturer used an 8250 or a 16450 or a 16550, so why should it matter if the manufacturer used an 8530?
BTW, are you still maintaining the serial layer?
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