linux-kernel - Re: kms in defconfig

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Date:	Tue, 28 Apr 2009 10:23:39 -0700 (PDT)
From:	david@...g.hm
To:	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>
cc:	Tejun Heo <tj@...nel.org>, Dave Airlie <airlied@...il.com>,
	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...e.hu>,
	LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: kms in defconfig

On Tue, 28 Apr 2009, Linus Torvalds wrote:

> On Tue, 28 Apr 2009, david@...g.hm wrote:
>>
>> as a end-user creating my own configs, I use the defaults as a guide to
>> understand when something moves from "we think it's a good idea" to "things
>> really need this"
>
> I'm not talking about the defaults in the Kconfig files themselves, I'm
> talking about the millions of "*_defconfig" files that have tons of random
> default values.

Ok, I misunderstood.

>> If a tool was available to detect the hardware and create a config tailored
>> for the box, this use for a default config would go away
>
> Yeah, I've wished for that.
>
> Although I personally don't find that the actual hardware to be the
> biggest issue (since there are usually just a few options for that, and
> they are mostly not confusing). Instead, it's the issues about knowing
> which software components (netfilter, filesystems, auditing, POSIX ACL's)
> that you really want.

yes and no, getting a config that will boot on your system can sometimes 
be 'interesting' (mapping hardware -> config option for example), but 
should be able to be automated.

the other items that you mention (netfilter, etc) are actually the easier 
ones to deal with (you know what you want), and also the place where it's 
impossible to detect what's wanted.

> It tends to be easy to just enable them all, but if you want a nice
> efficient build, that's very much against the point.
>
> So having some kind of (probably inevitably fairly complex) script that
> you could run to get a config would be good. The problem is that the
> script would need to be distributed with the kernel, yet it would often
> also have some nasty distro issues.

I've seen people talk about creating such tools, but the responses that 
I've seen have tended to discourage them.

David Lang
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