Subject: Re: Regulator support for smsc911x

From: Mark Brown <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 3 Feb 2012 11:11:34 +0000

On Fri, Feb 03, 2012 at 08:44:08AM +0100, Sascha Hauer wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 03, 2012 at 01:17:23AM -0200, Fabio Estevam wrote:

> > Please advise if I should fix it in Kconfig or defconfig, so that I
> > can submit a patch.

> If you enable it every device will get a regulator when it requests one.
> If for some reason for example the initialization order of your devices
> changes and a device gets probed before the corresponding (real)
> regulator is registered, then this device will continue with the dummy
> regulator and probably won't work.

Hrm, yeah - the dummy regulator support will be totally broken by the
stuff Grant is working on for fixing the general issues with probe
ordering.

> We could a) live with this problem and default enable the dummy
> regulator. We could also b) apply (a fixed version of) the following
> patch which simplifies registration of a dummy regulator. Still it's a

There's also options c) set up the regulators for the board and d) don't
enable the regulator API if the board doesn't use regulators.

> bit annoying to have to fix all users once someone adds regulator
> support for a driver.

Yeah, it's a shame.  I really can't see anything else useful we can do
though.