答复: [PATCH v2] r8125: add r8125 ethernet poll mode driver

[王颢 <howard_wang@realsil.com.cn>]

Dear Ferruh,

I'm delighted to receive your email. I'd like to address some of the questions you raised.

The drivers supported by the PMD uploaded by Realtek will include all in-market Realtek PCIe network card chips. Currently, we plan to first upload drivers supporting 2.5G and 5G network cards, while the 1G support will be uploaded later in the form of patches.

To the best of my understanding, the PMD does not have specific requirements regarding the motherboard. Our motivation for upstreaming is twofold: firstly, we hope to join the DPDK community, just like our Linux kernel driver. Secondly, we want to make it easier for those interested in our network cards, be it customers or individual enthusiasts, to easily access the PMD.

Next, I'll respond to some of the suggestions you made.

Firstly, as per your recommendations, I will merge r8125 and r8126 into a single PMD; future versions of r8168 will also be included, and they will ultimately be named r8169 to be consistent with the Linux kernel driver.

Secondly, I have already started breaking down the PMD into several smaller commits, some of which are available on the Gerrit platform for Hau to review. Once approved, I will start uploading them.

Regarding maintainers, we previously used a group name for the Linux kernel, so we have adopted the same submission method this time. However, I will update it to the content below in the future.

+Realtek r8125
+M: Howard Wang <howard_wang@realsil.com.cn>
+M: Hau <hau@realtek.com>
+M: Xing Wang <xing_wang@realsil.com.cn>
+M: pro_nic_dpdk@realtek.com /* group name*/

Lastly, concerning the binary data issue, this is one of the main components maintained by Realtek and is indispensable. The meanings are confidential as they are core to Realtek NICs. I apologize for not being able to disclose more details.

Thanks!
Howard Wang

-----邮件原件-----
发件人: Ferruh Yigit <ferruh.yigit@amd.com> 
发送时间: 2024年7月6日 5:13
收件人: 王颢 <howard_wang@realsil.com.cn>; dev@dpdk.org
抄送: pro_nic_dpdk@realtek.com; David Marchand <david.marchand@redhat.com>; Thomas Monjalon <thomas@monjalon.net>
主题: Re: [PATCH v2] r8125: add r8125 ethernet poll mode driver


External mail.



On 6/13/2024 4:36 AM, Howard Wang wrote:
> r8125 is for Realtek 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet NICs.
>
> Signed-off-by: Howard Wang <howard_wang@realsil.com.cn>
>

Hi Howard,

Thanks for contributing to DPDK. I remember Realtek drivers mentioned a few times in the past, it is great to see it will be publicly available.

Can you please give some more details which devices, SoC or specific boards etc supported with these driver(s) (r8125 & r8126 in other patch)?
What is the motivation for the upstreaming, like is this for a customer or to enable people experiment DPDK on boards with Realtek NICs etc..?


Btw, there were some offline suggestions from David & Thomas, let me try to summurise them first here:

- Can r8125 & r8126 drivers combined into single driver, perhaps with some common code? Assuming two drivers are common enough to put together.

- Can you please split the patch into multiple commits, so that it becomes easier to review and analyze later. There is another driver upstreaming in progress, you can check it as sample:
https://patches.dpdk.org/project/dpdk/list/?series=32313&state=%2A&archive=both

- Use a real person as maintainer, and in .mailmap file instead of alias


Also I can see some binary data in the driver, are they necessary to keep in the driver, like:
mcu_patch_code_8125a_2()
rtl8125_real_set_phy_mcu_8125a_1()
rtl8125_real_set_phy_mcu_8125a_2()
phy_mcu_ram_code_8125b_1
...
phy_mcu_ram_code_8125d_1_1
...

They are taking space and as they are binary there is no way for driver to understand / update / fix them..


For both this one and r8126, I will wait for next version to review further.

Thanks,
ferruh