Re: Kconfig CONFIG_FB dependency regression

[Thinh Nguyen <Thinh.Nguyen@synopsys.com>]

Randy Dunlap wrote:
> 
> 
> On 2/3/22 19:21, Thinh Nguyen wrote:
>> Arnd Bergmann wrote:
>>> On Thu, Feb 3, 2022 at 12:55 AM Thinh Nguyen <Thinh.Nguyen@synopsys.com> wrote:
>>>> Arnd Bergmann wrote:
>>>>> On Wed, Feb 2, 2022 at 1:14 AM Thinh Nguyen <Thinh.Nguyen@synopsys.com> wrote:
>>>>>> Fabio Estevam wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> CONFIG_FB should not normally be needed for booting, so unless
>>>>> you have a graphical application in your initramfs that requires the /dev/fb0
>>>>> device to work, it is not supposed to make a difference.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I'm not sure, but it seems like the setup we have isn't the only one
>>>> that needed it. Fabio also noted that the imx_v6_v7_defconfig also needs
>>>> to have CONFIG_FB set.
>>>
>>> No, that one is different: the change for imx_v6_v7_defconfig was
>>> done because they actually use a framebuffer console on some devices,
>>> so the patch just adds the symbol to enable the drivers they are using.
>>>
>>> This is expected with my original patch that doesn't implicitly enable
>>> the framebuffer layer any more. What is not expected is for the kernel
>>> to hang during boot as you reported for your unidentified platform.
>>>
>>>>> Are there any other differences in your .config before and after the patch?
>>>>> It's possible that you use some other driver that in turn depends on
>>>>> CONFIG_FB. Does your machine have any graphical output device?
>>>>> If yes, which driver do you use?
>>>>
>>>> I don't have the answer to those questions yet. Need more investigation.
>>>> I'm new to this particular test setup.
>>>
>>> Do you mean you don't know if there is a screen attached to the system?
>>>
>>
>> It does have a graphical output device, but I didn't check what it is or
>> what driver is driving it. I just notice that after the reported commit,
>> something stopped working.
>>
>>>>>
>>>>> You may also want to make sure that you have 9d6366e743f3 ("drm:
>>>>> fb_helper: improve CONFIG_FB dependency") in your kernel, which
>>>>> fixes a minor problem with my original patch.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> The issue also occurs in mainline, which has your minor fix commit
>>>> above. The revert isn't clean for the latest kernel version. I also have
>>>> to revert some of the changes along with CONFIG_FB. The revert looks
>>>> more like this for the latest kernel:
>>>>
>>>> diff --git a/drivers/gpu/drm/Kconfig b/drivers/gpu/drm/Kconfig
>>>> index b1f22e457fd0..7cbc733a8569 100644
>>>> --- a/drivers/gpu/drm/Kconfig
>>>> +++ b/drivers/gpu/drm/Kconfig
>>>> @@ -118,8 +118,9 @@ config DRM_DEBUG_MODESET_LOCK
>>>>
>>>>  config DRM_FBDEV_EMULATION
>>>>         bool "Enable legacy fbdev support for your modesetting driver"
>>>> -       depends on DRM_KMS_HELPER
>>>> -       depends on FB=y || FB=DRM_KMS_HELPER
>>>> +       depends on DRM
>>>> +       select DRM_KMS_HELPER
>>>> +       select FB
>>>>         select FB_CFB_FILLRECT
>>>>         select FB_CFB_COPYAREA
>>>>         select FB_CFB_IMAGEBLIT
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I attached the configs for kernel v5.17-rc1. The "bad" config is without
>>>> any revert, the "good" config is with the change above.
>>>
>>> Looking at the config, I see that this is for an x86 machine,
>>> and you have the FB_EFI driver and EFI_EARLYCON enabled.
>>>
>>> What I suspec is going on is that you are looking at a screen rather
>>> than a serial console, and the kernel doesn't actually hang but you
>>> just don't see any more messages after the DRM driver takes
>>> over from EFI_EARLYCON because there is no console driver.
>>>
>>> In this case, what you see is the intended behavior, not a bug.
>>> If you want a graphical console in your system, you need to
>>> enable the support for this in your config.
>>>
>>
>> It sounds like that's the case. Unfortunately I'm not familiar with this
>> subsystem to say that's what happening. If there's nothing actually
>> broken from review, we can ignore this email thread.
> 
> Hi,
> I don't know of anything that is broken...
> 
> I am curious how CONFIG_FB_EFI came to be set when going from bad.config to
> good.config.  Can you explain that?
> 

I just use the change above and "make" with olddefconfig option. Is it
not expected?

Thanks,
Thinh