Re: [PATCH] ASoC: mediatek: Allow setting readable driver names through kconfig

["Nícolas F. R. A. Prado" <nfraprado@collabora.com>]

On Wed, Jun 26, 2024 at 08:44:14AM -0400, Nícolas F. R. A. Prado wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 26, 2024 at 09:49:55AM +0200, AngeloGioacchino Del Regno wrote:
> > Il 25/06/24 22:23, Nícolas F. R. A. Prado ha scritto:
> > > Commit c8d18e440225 ("ASoC: core: clarify the driver name
> > > initialization") introduced an error message when driver names are
> > > automatically generated and result in truncated names.
> > > 
> > > For example, this error message is printed on mt8195-cherry-tomato-rev2:
> > > 
> > >    mt8195_mt6359 mt8195-sound: ASoC: driver name too long 'sof-mt8195_r1019_5682' -> 'sof-mt8195_r101'
> > > 
> > > Since that truncated driver name is already used by userspace (eg UCM),
> > > it can't be unconditionally updated.
> > > 
> > > As suggested by Jaroslav, update the driver name but hide it behind a
> > > kernel config option, which Linux distributions can enable once the
> > > corresponding support in userspace audio configuration software lands.
> > > This ensures that audio doesn't regress, while still allowing the error
> > > to be fixed.
> > 
> > I can propose the following plan of action for such a rename:
> >  1. Temporarily have both UCMs
> >  2. Wait until distros update their packages
> 
> It's not possible to monitor the package version for every single distro, so I
> guess you mean tracking only the big distros and hoping that no small distro
> still uses the old version.
> 
> Also, is UCM the only userspace tool that might use this name? There might be
> others too that we would need to care about.
> 
> >  3. Change the name in kernel without extra config options
> >  4. Remove the now deprecated UCMs
> > 
> > ...that's requiring a bit of time, yes, but I think this is the best way to
> > ensure that no breakage happens in the meantime for any users.
> 
> My worry is that we don't know how long it would take, if a small distro decides
> to keep using the old version. But even in the best case it might take years for
> the old version to be phased out, I'm not sure I'll be around for that, so maybe
> we'll just keep using the old name forever.
> 
> The nice thing about the config is that distros and users can opt-in immediately
> to get rid of the error. For example KernelCI, which is monitoring such errors,
> can enable this config to fix this error right now.

Anyone has any thoughts on this?

Thanks,
Nícolas