Possible removal of saa7146 and ttpci drivers from kernel tree

  • As I'm not subscribed to linux-media@vger.kernel.org mailing list, just recently got aware that most part of drivers using videobuf version 1, have been moved to staging/media/depreciated area. This means that at some point these drivers could be removed if not converted to videobuf version 2 (maintainers wrote "some time next year"). The move started with https://lore.kernel.org/linux-…1455527ece2a@xs4all.nl/#t followed by https://lore.kernel.org/linux-…-hverkuil-cisco@xs4all.nl and https://lore.kernel.org/linux-…59-43c0b7f56486@xs4all.nl which in result landed in 6.1 kernel.


    This post is to raise some awareness about it, as I don't have skills to do the driver conversion myself. Hope someone in VDR community can step-up and do the task.

  • S:oren ,


    I'm not that familiar with these changes.

    But does that mean that the TT6400 no longer works either? Then I'm very interested in keeping these alive.

    But what can we do?


    I am very grateful that you have kept the drivers for the TT6400 alive so far and I wish, you would continue to do so in the future.

    I will use the TT6400 here for as long as possible.


    Grüße

    kamel5

    VDR 2.6.6: ASUS Prime X470-PRO, Ryzen 7 5700X, 64GB, 6TB HD, GT1030, Fedora 39 Kernel 6.7 X86_64, Devicebonding 2 x 1 auf 2, TT6400, DVBSky S952 V3

    Git-Repo: gitlab.com/kamel5

  • I am interested in keeping the TT S2-1600 working.

    I have no idea, what would be required in order to shift from videobuf1 to videobuf2, though.

  • I guess, I am one of the last users of the SD-FF, but I am interested to keep it running. At least for for a while.

    (Zumindest, solange es die Privaten FTA nur in SD gibt.

    An die Zapping-Performance kommt bislang einfach nichts ran und ich zappe nunmal leidenschaltlich gern :))


    I am even more interested in keeping the TT-Budgets working. I have a few of them, still good cards.

    My knowledge about the driver-internals is very limited, but I did some quick research last week.

    There is Documentation about Videobuf and Videobuf2 API, which looks useful to me.

    Affected files are at: drivers/media/common/saa7146/saa7146* .

    The av7110*, budget* and ttpci* files doesn't seem to be affected. (Just a quick search, maybe I missed something).

    If I am right, it is doable without understanding the whole driver.

    I will try it some time, if nobody else does, but I am afraid that would be to late.

    Gruss
    SHF


  • Regarding the budget cards, aside from converting the driver to vb2, there's also possibility to simply strip the video input capabilities from the driver. We could probably convince Hans to do this himself, as apparently the vendor of Omnicom S2 PCI card is still selling it (https://www.omicom.info/PayPal_Omicom_S2_PCIr3.html, personally didn't try to order it). But as that would create not good position for full-featured cards, I won't post any request to Media ML until someone posts patches for removal of the driver.

  • there's also possibility to simply strip the video input capabilities from the driver.

    I doubt that that is possible.

    I'm not sure, but Videobuf seems to be used to transfer the DVB-Data too.

    Gruss
    SHF


  • Falls das Anfang 2023 raus fliegt, ist es dann zuletzt in Kernel 6.1 als deprecated und in 6.0 regulär.

    Wahrscheinlich wird 6.1 oder vielleicht 6.0 LTS Support bekommen.

    Mit etwas Glück hält das bis Ende 2028, mindestens jedoch bis Ende 2025.

    Mit der passenden LTS Distribution oder wenn man seinen Kernel selbst baut, hat man da also noch Zeit.

    Trotzdem schade um die Budget Karten ;(

  • Hi,


    Ich verwende keine FF Karten mehr.

    Ich würde mir im Kernel aktuelle und gepflegte Treiber für Budget Karten wünschen.

    Das scheint aber nicht möglich zu sein, bei dem derzeitigen Maintener (?).


    ~ Markus

    Client1: ASUS P5QC, Dual Core 3G, Cine S2, Ext. Board von TBE, Xubuntu 20.04, VDR 2.6x

    Client2: RPI3

    Server: RPI4, Sundtek SkyTV Dual 2x

  • I doubt that that is possible.

    I'm not sure, but Videobuf seems to be used to transfer the DVB-Data too.


    Sorry, I should be more specific, I meant the budget cards supported by ttpci driver (didn't realize that saa7146 also support particular budget cards). From brief look at the source, only ttpci/budget-av.c contains videobuf references.

    Btw. when zoran driver was removed and Corentin stepped-up to convert the driver, Hans responded with small check list: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-…c6-ea9036afac3d@xs4all.nl. Hope this helps, for me that's way over my head.


    Falls das Anfang 2023 raus fliegt, ist es dann zuletzt in Kernel 6.1 als deprecated und in 6.0 regulär.

    Wahrscheinlich wird 6.1 oder vielleicht 6.0 LTS Support bekommen.

    Mit etwas Glück hält das bis Ende 2028, mindestens jedoch bis Ende 2025.


    The 6.1 seem to be next LTS candidate.


    Ich würde mir im Kernel aktuelle und gepflegte Treiber für Budget Karten wünschen.

    As already mentioned, the videobuf code should be easily stripped from the ttpci driver. That would cause issues for someone wanting to also convert saa7146 driver, since both drivers currently are entangled with each other, and I personally don't want to do that until last moment.


    Das scheint aber nicht möglich zu sein, bei dem derzeitigen Maintener (?).

    Well, nobody asked or complained yet on the mailing list or #linux-media IRC channel on OFTC. I'll do that somewhere after Christmas (unless someone beats me to it), just want to give time for anyone wanting to convert saa7146 as well as the ttpci driver to videobuf2, so I don't thwart his/hers efforts.

  • Sorry, I should be more specific, I meant the budget cards supported by ttpci driver (didn't realize that saa7146 also support particular budget cards). From brief look at the source, only ttpci/budget-av.c contains videobuf references.

    Our DVB budget cards are supported by the ttpci driver.

    I thought there were dependencies to saa7146 driver. But I probably remembered wrong.

    (Long time since my last contact with the driver source :schiel.)


    For the ones interested in an example how such a conversion patch will look like:

    em28xx: convert to videobuf2

    s2255drv: upgrade to videobuf2

    cx25821: convert to vb2

    Pretty big patches, more work than I expected.

    Gruss
    SHF


  • Some discussions here, at least.


    For me, the videobuf2 conversion itself is not a big problem. A can do that, and test that on a SD-FF (AV7110) card. For SAA7146 budget cards I would need other testers, who also will provide Tested-by tags to the media mailing list.

    Technically that is just work where I probably can do the programming part over the Christmas holidays.


    The real problem - as always with linux-media - is political, see drivers/staging/media/deprecated/saa7146/av7110/TODO (v6.1-rc8):

    Code
    - This driver is too old and relies on a different API.
      Drop it from Kernel on a couple of versions.
    - Cleanup patches for the drivers here won't be accepted.

    What the "different API" is, what the problem with old but used and maintained hardware+drivers is, and how this relates to

    Code
    If someone is interested in doing this work, then contact the
    linux-media mailinglist

    in the same file probably can only understand linux-media "maintainers".

    For me "patches won't be accepted" is the opposite of maintenance.


    If somebody else wants to discuss this on the linux-media mailing list, I'm happy to join this discussion (please cc: me). As it stands now, doing all the work with the clear prospect of not being accepted makes no sense at all for me.


    Besides that, last time I fought for these drivers, exactly nobody from the VDR community supported me on the mailing list. And this is not about 'programming or reviewing these patches is too complicated for me'. Just 'I use this and plan to do so as long as possible', 'I'm happy to see this driver upstream and supported in distribution xy', or 'I would even be more happy to also see the related saa716x driver upstream' would counter the usual 'this is old and irrelevant anyway'.


    Yes, this also relates to the HD-FF (saa716x) cards. videobuf2 conversion will be necessary here too (but this makes sense for linux overall), further crippling the DVB API upstream instead will make live increasingly complicated for this driver, without any technical reason.

    I always liked to maintain these drivers and to adapt everything required for modern linux versions. But I'm really tired of all the political discussions. Without at least a little bit of help from the community at linux-media, I cannot promise to continue support.


    Regards,

    S:oren

  • Well, the question is what they mean when saying "Cleanup patches"?

    They already accepted patches for other cards.

    So I am not sure, if your concern, just from reading a comment, is justified. But who knows ...


    It would be great, if you would do the the videobuf2 conversion.

    I would be willing to test on a budget card and also to provide a Tested-by tag.

  • Well, the question is what they mean when saying "Cleanup patches"?

    The whole purpose of a TODO file in a staging driver is to tell what needs to be done to get this out of staging.

    They already accepted patches for other cards.

    Great, linux-media is not completely dead. A little bit of work is still be done. What a great achievement, for payed maintainers/supporters.

    So I am not sure, if your concern, just from reading a comment, is justified. But who knows ...

    Well, not all TODO files have this content. But the file for my card's driver has.

    So you tell me, I'm to dumb to understand the subtleties here!? Thanks!

    It would be great, if you would do the the videobuf2 conversion.

    I would be willing to test on a budget card and also to provide a Tested-by tag.

    So you ask me to to do the work for your card, while not supporting to keep my card alive!? What I great incentive to spend my holiday time...

  • Was für eine Unterstützung willst du denn haben?

    Hat doch erst Sinn, wenn ein Patch da ist, oder?

    Der Unterschied zwischen den drei TODOs ist schon auffällig:

    https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm…46/av7110/TODO?h=v6.1-rc8

    https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm…6/saa7146/TODO?h=v6.1-rc8

    https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm…146/ttpci/TODO?h=v6.1-rc8

    Klar willst du die Arbeit nicht umsonst machen.

    Falls du einen Patch für die Umstellung machst, und der nicht akzeptiert würde, könnte man den aber immer noch als Selbstkernelbauer anwenden, oder?

    Warum sind die beim AV7110 so unwillig?

  • Weil es mauro ist...

    Test-VDR1: HP rp5700 Fertigsystem, Core2Duo E6400, 2GB RAM, FF-SD C-2300, nvidia Slim-GT218 x1 | easyVDR 2.0 64Bit
    VDR3: in Rente

    VDR4: MSI G31M2 v2, Digitainer2-Geh., t6963c 6" gLCD, E5200, 2GB, 3TB WD Red, GT730, 2x TT S2-3200; easyVDR 3.5 64bit
    VDR5: Gigabyte
    GA-G31M-S2L, Intel E2140, Zotac GT730 passiv, Digitainer2-Geh., t6963c 6 " gLCD, 2 TB WD Red, 2x TT S2-3200 (an 1 Kabel) easyVDR 3.5 64bit
    VDR6:
    Intel E5200, GT630 passiv, F1 750 GB, t6963c gLCD, 2x TT S2-3200 | easyVDR 3.5 64bit
    VDR-User #1068
    www.easy-vdr.de

  • Was für eine Unterstützung willst du denn haben?

    Welcher Teil meines Angebots an die Community genau ist denn unklar?

    Hat doch erst Sinn, wenn ein Patch da ist, oder?

    Äh, nein. Es geht hier nicht um technische Fragen (die immer loesbar sind).

    Falls du einen Patch für die Umstellung machst, und der nicht akzeptiert würde, könnte man den aber immer noch als Selbstkernelbauer anwenden, oder?

    Selbstverstaendlich. Nur wenn ich keinerlei, exakt Null, Unterstuetzung fuer die FF-Karten bei linux-media bekomme, warum sollte ich so einen Patch bauen und veroeffentlichen? Passende Budget-Karten habe ich nicht, und auch keine Langeweile.

  • Wenn ich es richtig verstehe, bezieht sich die Aussage „keine Patches“ nur auf den dvbttpci Treiber wegen der darin enthaltenen alten DVB Decoder API.

    Eingereichte Patches bezüglich videobuf2 für Saa7146-basierte Budgetkarten akzeptiert zu bekommen wäre demnach kein Problem.

    Aber lohnt der Aufwand denn wirklich? Hat irgendwer diese alte Hardware heutzutage noch im Einsatz auf Systemen, die nicht auch notfalls mit altem Kernel noch weiterlaufen könnten?

    VDR1: ACT-620, Asus P8B75-M LX, Intel Core i3-3240, 4 GB DDR3 RAM 1600 MHz, passive Geforce GT1030 von MSI, Sandisk 2TB SSD, 2xWinTV DualHD, Atric-IR-Einschalter. SW: Xubuntu 20.04 auf 64GB Sandisk SSD.

    VDR2: Odroid N2+ mit CoreELEC und Ubuntu in chroot, WinTV DualHD

    VDR3: Tanix TX3 mit CoreELEC und Ubuntu in chroot, WinTV DualHD

  • Unterstützung für FF-Karten betreffend sind also Besitzer einer solchen Karte gefragt. Ich habe keine.


    Ich hatte hier im Forum auch schon mal um Unterstützung für ein Kernel Modul für den IRMP Keyboard Empfänger gebeten. Null Reaktion. Ja, das ist frustrierend. Meinen Patch habe ich trotzdem veröffentlicht. Weil ich es wollte.

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