RE: 2.6.9: serial_core: uart_open

["karl malbrain" <karl@petzent.com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Russell King
> Sent: Thursday, July 14, 2005 11:57 AM
> To: karl malbrain
> Cc: Linux-Kernel@Vger. Kernel. Org
> Subject: Re: 2.6.9: serial_core: uart_open
>
>
> On Thu, Jul 14, 2005 at 10:16:23AM -0700, karl malbrain wrote:
> > I'd love to do a ps listing for you, but, except for the mouse,
> the system
> > is completely unresponsive after issuing the blocking open("/dev/ttyS1",
> > O_RDRW).
> >
> > Telnet is dead; the console will respond to the mouse, but the
> only thing I
> > can do is close the xterm window and thereby kill the process.
> I can launch
> > a new xterm window from the menu using the mouse, but the new
> window is dead
> > and has no cursor nor bash prompt.
> >
> > The clock on the display is being updated.  After several hours
> the system
> > reboots on its own.
> >
> > I recall from my DOS days that 8250/16550 programming requires that the
> > specific IIR source be responded to, or the chip will immediately
> > turn-around with another interrupt.  It doesn't look like 8250.c is
> > organized to respond directly to the modem-status-change value
> in IIR which
> > requires reading MSR to reset.
>
> Well, at this point interrupts are enabled, and _are_ handled.  The
> only thing we use the IIR for is to answer the question "did this
> device say it had an interrupt?"
>
> If it did, we unconditionally read the MSR without fail.
>
> So, I've no idea what so ever about what's going on here.  I don't
> understand why your system is behaving the way it is.  Therefore,
> I don't think we can progress this any further, sorry.

AT LAST I HAVE SOME DATA!!!

The problem is that ALL SYSTEM CALLS to open "/dev/tty" are blocking!! even
with O_NDELAY set and even from completely disjoint sessions.  I discovered
this via issuing "strace sh".  That's why the new xterm windows froze.

The original process doing the open("/dev/ttyS1", O_RDWR) is listed in the
ps aux listing as status S+.

Hope this helps.... karl m