Re: [PATCH] pcictl: simplify its usage

[Matthias Drochner <M.Drochner%fz-juelich.de@localhost>]

macallan%NetBSD.org@localhost said:
> Most halfway recent PowerMacs have multiple PCI domains
> [...]

Good example that also mainstream hardware is affected, but I somehow
dislike the term "PCI domain". It is just a bus, and we've had eg
"scsictl" for ages which doesn't care whether a SCSI bus hangs on
a different host adapter or not.
(A quick google search didn't yield any indication that a "PCI domain"
exists outside of Linux.)

> Works fine, my only gripe is that there is no sane & reliable way for  
> userland to find out if /dev/pci<a> is a subordinate of /dev/pci<b>.

Agreed. In an ideal world, no user program would need to care
about that. But with X servers and xen we somehow need to arrange
with the real world which is full of abstraction violations.
Anyway, the existing kernel interfaces allow to find out the
complete topology, so I'd add kernel code only after thorough
consideration.

best regards
Matthias




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