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Documentation / acpi / linuxized-acpica.txt


Based on kernel version 4.16.1. Page generated on 2018-04-09 11:52 EST.

1	Linuxized ACPICA - Introduction to ACPICA Release Automation
2	
3	Copyright (C) 2013-2016, Intel Corporation
4	Author: Lv Zheng <lv.zheng@intel.com>
5	
6	
7	Abstract:
8	
9	This document describes the ACPICA project and the relationship between
10	ACPICA and Linux.  It also describes how ACPICA code in drivers/acpi/acpica,
11	include/acpi and tools/power/acpi is automatically updated to follow the
12	upstream.
13	
14	
15	1. ACPICA Project
16	
17	   The ACPI Component Architecture (ACPICA) project provides an operating
18	   system (OS)-independent reference implementation of the Advanced
19	   Configuration and Power Interface Specification (ACPI).  It has been
20	   adapted by various host OSes.  By directly integrating ACPICA, Linux can
21	   also benefit from the application experiences of ACPICA from other host
22	   OSes.
23	
24	   The homepage of ACPICA project is: www.acpica.org, it is maintained and
25	   supported by Intel Corporation.
26	
27	   The following figure depicts the Linux ACPI subsystem where the ACPICA
28	   adaptation is included:
29	
30	      +---------------------------------------------------------+
31	      |                                                         |
32	      |   +---------------------------------------------------+ |
33	      |   | +------------------+                              | |
34	      |   | | Table Management |                              | |
35	      |   | +------------------+                              | |
36	      |   | +----------------------+                          | |
37	      |   | | Namespace Management |                          | |
38	      |   | +----------------------+                          | |
39	      |   | +------------------+       ACPICA Components      | |
40	      |   | | Event Management |                              | |
41	      |   | +------------------+                              | |
42	      |   | +---------------------+                           | |
43	      |   | | Resource Management |                           | |
44	      |   | +---------------------+                           | |
45	      |   | +---------------------+                           | |
46	      |   | | Hardware Management |                           | |
47	      |   | +---------------------+                           | |
48	      | +---------------------------------------------------+ | |
49	      | | |                            +------------------+ | | |
50	      | | |                            | OS Service Layer | | | |
51	      | | |                            +------------------+ | | |
52	      | | +-------------------------------------------------|-+ |
53	      | |   +--------------------+                          |   |
54	      | |   | Device Enumeration |                          |   |
55	      | |   +--------------------+                          |   |
56	      | |   +------------------+                            |   |
57	      | |   | Power Management |                            |   |
58	      | |   +------------------+     Linux/ACPI Components  |   |
59	      | |   +--------------------+                          |   |
60	      | |   | Thermal Management |                          |   |
61	      | |   +--------------------+                          |   |
62	      | |   +--------------------------+                    |   |
63	      | |   | Drivers for ACPI Devices |                    |   |
64	      | |   +--------------------------+                    |   |
65	      | |   +--------+                                      |   |
66	      | |   | ...... |                                      |   |
67	      | |   +--------+                                      |   |
68	      | +---------------------------------------------------+   |
69	      |                                                         |
70	      +---------------------------------------------------------+
71	
72	                 Figure 1. Linux ACPI Software Components
73	
74	   NOTE:
75	    A. OS Service Layer - Provided by Linux to offer OS dependent
76	       implementation of the predefined ACPICA interfaces (acpi_os_*).
77	         include/acpi/acpiosxf.h
78	         drivers/acpi/osl.c
79	         include/acpi/platform
80	         include/asm/acenv.h
81	    B. ACPICA Functionality - Released from ACPICA code base to offer
82	       OS independent implementation of the ACPICA interfaces (acpi_*).
83	         drivers/acpi/acpica
84	         include/acpi/ac*.h
85	         tools/power/acpi
86	    C. Linux/ACPI Functionality - Providing Linux specific ACPI
87	       functionality to the other Linux kernel subsystems and user space
88	       programs.
89	         drivers/acpi
90	         include/linux/acpi.h
91	         include/linux/acpi*.h
92	         include/acpi
93	         tools/power/acpi
94	    D. Architecture Specific ACPICA/ACPI Functionalities - Provided by the
95	       ACPI subsystem to offer architecture specific implementation of the
96	       ACPI interfaces.  They are Linux specific components and are out of
97	       the scope of this document.
98	         include/asm/acpi.h
99	         include/asm/acpi*.h
100	         arch/*/acpi
101	
102	2. ACPICA Release
103	
104	   The ACPICA project maintains its code base at the following repository URL:
105	   https://github.com/acpica/acpica.git. As a rule, a release is made every
106	   month.
107	
108	   As the coding style adopted by the ACPICA project is not acceptable by
109	   Linux, there is a release process to convert the ACPICA git commits into
110	   Linux patches.  The patches generated by this process are referred to as
111	   "linuxized ACPICA patches".  The release process is carried out on a local
112	   copy the ACPICA git repository.  Each commit in the monthly release is
113	   converted into a linuxized ACPICA patch.  Together, they form the monthly
114	   ACPICA release patchset for the Linux ACPI community.  This process is
115	   illustrated in the following figure:
116	
117	    +-----------------------------+
118	    | acpica / master (-) commits |
119	    +-----------------------------+
120	       /|\         |
121	        |         \|/
122	        |  /---------------------\    +----------------------+
123	        | < Linuxize repo Utility >-->| old linuxized acpica |--+
124	        |  \---------------------/    +----------------------+  |
125	        |                                                       |
126	     /---------\                                                |
127	    < git reset >                                                \
128	     \---------/                                                  \
129	       /|\                                                        /+-+
130	        |                                                        /   |
131	    +-----------------------------+                             |    |
132	    | acpica / master (+) commits |                             |    |
133	    +-----------------------------+                             |    |
134	                   |                                            |    |
135	                  \|/                                           |    |
136	         /-----------------------\    +----------------------+  |    |
137	        < Linuxize repo Utilities >-->| new linuxized acpica |--+    |
138	         \-----------------------/    +----------------------+       |
139	                                                                    \|/
140	    +--------------------------+                  /----------------------\
141	    | Linuxized ACPICA Patches |<----------------< Linuxize patch Utility >
142	    +--------------------------+                  \----------------------/
143	                   |
144	                  \|/
145	     /---------------------------\
146	    < Linux ACPI Community Review >
147	     \---------------------------/
148	                   |
149	                  \|/
150	    +-----------------------+    /------------------\    +----------------+
151	    | linux-pm / linux-next |-->< Linux Merge Window >-->| linux / master |
152	    +-----------------------+    \------------------/    +----------------+
153	
154	                Figure 2. ACPICA -> Linux Upstream Process
155	
156	   NOTE:
157	    A. Linuxize Utilities - Provided by the ACPICA repository, including a
158	       utility located in source/tools/acpisrc folder and a number of
159	       scripts located in generate/linux folder.
160	    B. acpica / master - "master" branch of the git repository at
161	       <https://github.com/acpica/acpica.git>.
162	    C. linux-pm / linux-next - "linux-next" branch of the git repository at
163	       <http://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/rafael/linux-pm.git>.
164	    D. linux / master - "master" branch of the git repository at
165	       <http://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git>.
166	
167	   Before the linuxized ACPICA patches are sent to the Linux ACPI community
168	   for review, there is a quality assurance build test process to reduce
169	   porting issues.  Currently this build process only takes care of the
170	   following kernel configuration options:
171	   CONFIG_ACPI/CONFIG_ACPI_DEBUG/CONFIG_ACPI_DEBUGGER
172	
173	3. ACPICA Divergences
174	
175	   Ideally, all of the ACPICA commits should be converted into Linux patches
176	   automatically without manual modifications, the "linux / master" tree should
177	   contain the ACPICA code that exactly corresponds to the ACPICA code
178	   contained in "new linuxized acpica" tree and it should be possible to run
179	   the release process fully automatically.
180	
181	   As a matter of fact, however, there are source code differences between
182	   the ACPICA code in Linux and the upstream ACPICA code, referred to as
183	   "ACPICA Divergences".
184	
185	   The various sources of ACPICA divergences include:
186	   1. Legacy divergences - Before the current ACPICA release process was
187	      established, there already had been divergences between Linux and
188	      ACPICA. Over the past several years those divergences have been greatly
189	      reduced, but there still are several ones and it takes time to figure
190	      out the underlying reasons for their existence.
191	   2. Manual modifications - Any manual modification (eg. coding style fixes)
192	      made directly in the Linux sources obviously hurts the ACPICA release
193	      automation.  Thus it is recommended to fix such issues in the ACPICA
194	      upstream source code and generate the linuxized fix using the ACPICA
195	      release utilities (please refer to Section 4 below for the details).
196	   3. Linux specific features - Sometimes it's impossible to use the
197	      current ACPICA APIs to implement features required by the Linux kernel,
198	      so Linux developers occasionally have to change ACPICA code directly.
199	      Those changes may not be acceptable by ACPICA upstream and in such cases
200	      they are left as committed ACPICA divergences unless the ACPICA side can
201	      implement new mechanisms as replacements for them.
202	   4. ACPICA release fixups - ACPICA only tests commits using a set of the
203	      user space simulation utilities, thus the linuxized ACPICA patches may
204	      break the Linux kernel, leaving us build/boot failures.  In order to
205	      avoid breaking Linux bisection, fixes are applied directly to the
206	      linuxized ACPICA patches during the release process.  When the release
207	      fixups are backported to the upstream ACPICA sources, they must follow
208	      the upstream ACPICA rules and so further modifications may appear.
209	      That may result in the appearance of new divergences.
210	   5. Fast tracking of ACPICA commits - Some ACPICA commits are regression
211	      fixes or stable-candidate material, so they are applied in advance with
212	      respect to the ACPICA release process.  If such commits are reverted or
213	      rebased on the ACPICA side in order to offer better solutions, new ACPICA
214	      divergences are generated.
215	
216	4. ACPICA Development
217	
218	   This paragraph guides Linux developers to use the ACPICA upstream release
219	   utilities to obtain Linux patches corresponding to upstream ACPICA commits
220	   before they become available from the ACPICA release process.
221	
222	   1. Cherry-pick an ACPICA commit
223	
224	   First you need to git clone the ACPICA repository and the ACPICA change
225	   you want to cherry pick must be committed into the local repository.
226	
227	   Then the gen-patch.sh command can help to cherry-pick an ACPICA commit
228	   from the ACPICA local repository:
229	
230	   $ git clone https://github.com/acpica/acpica
231	   $ cd acpica
232	   $ generate/linux/gen-patch.sh -u [commit ID]
233	
234	   Here the commit ID is the ACPICA local repository commit ID you want to
235	   cherry pick.  It can be omitted if the commit is "HEAD".
236	
237	   2. Cherry-pick recent ACPICA commits
238	
239	   Sometimes you need to rebase your code on top of the most recent ACPICA
240	   changes that haven't been applied to Linux yet.
241	
242	   You can generate the ACPICA release series yourself and rebase your code on
243	   top of the generated ACPICA release patches:
244	
245	   $ git clone https://github.com/acpica/acpica
246	   $ cd acpica
247	   $ generate/linux/make-patches.sh -u [commit ID]
248	
249	   The commit ID should be the last ACPICA commit accepted by Linux.  Usually,
250	   it is the commit modifying ACPI_CA_VERSION.  It can be found by executing
251	   "git blame source/include/acpixf.h" and referencing the line that contains
252	   "ACPI_CA_VERSION".
253	
254	   3. Inspect the current divergences
255	
256	   If you have local copies of both Linux and upstream ACPICA, you can generate
257	   a diff file indicating the state of the current divergences:
258	
259	   # git clone https://github.com/acpica/acpica
260	   # git clone http://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git
261	   # cd acpica
262	   # generate/linux/divergences.sh -s ../linux
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