linux-kernel - RE: Dead Config Option STMMAC

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Message-ID: <107012446AC13D4C90B85672EAF5FB0E9E0FB3CC9C@SAFEX1MAIL3.st.com>
Date:	Mon, 23 Aug 2010 09:13:38 +0200
From:	Peppe CAVALLARO <peppe.cavallaro@...com>
To:	Christian Dietrich <qy03fugy@...d.informatik.uni-erlangen.de>,
	"David S. Miller" <davem@...emloft.net>,
	"netdev@...r.kernel.org" <netdev@...r.kernel.org>,
	"linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org" <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Cc:	"vamos-dev@...informatik.uni-erlangen.de" 
	<vamos-dev@...informatik.uni-erlangen.de>
Subject: RE: Dead Config Option STMMAC_ETH?

Hi Christian,

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Christian Dietrich [mailto:qy03fugy@...d.informatik.uni-erlangen.de]
> Sent: Tuesday, August 10, 2010 2:29 PM
> To: David S. Miller; Peppe CAVALLARO; netdev@...r.kernel.org; linux-
> kernel@...r.kernel.org
> Cc: vamos-dev@...informatik.uni-erlangen.de
> Subject: Dead Config Option STMMAC_ETH?
> 
> Hi all!
> 
>         As part of the VAMOS[0] research project at the University of
> Erlangen we are looking at multiple integrity errors in linux'
> configuration system.
> 
>         I've been running a check on the drivers/net/stmmac sourcetree for
> config Items not defined in Kconfig and found such a case. Sourcecode
> blocks depending on these Items are not reachable from a vanilla
> kernel -- dead code. I've seen such dead blocks made on purpose
> e.g. while integrating new features into the kernel but generally
> they're just useless.
> 
> As far as i can see in drivers/net/stmmac/Kconfig STMMAC_ETH and several
> depending flags are dead in the linux vanilla kernel, because it depends
> on CPU_SUBTYPE_ST40, but there isn't a Kconfig option for that. But
> f96691872439ab2071171d4531c4a95b5d493ae5 suggests, that support for this
> ST40 plattform was removed in 2007.
> 
> There seems to be, that there was much effort on the stmmac drivers in
> the last few months, so i just wanted to ask if this problem is known.

There is effort on this driver: currently the driver fully works on STM platforms and starts working on ARM (SPEAr Kernels).
The driver Kconfig actually depends on the CPU_SUBTYPE_ST40 but it built on x86 if remove this dependency (just verified).
In the past, I added this dependency because the driver was initially tested on ST kernels (where we continue to have the CPU_SUBTYPE_ST40) but I can review it if you like.

Regards,
Peppe


> Regards
> 
>         Christian Dietrich
> 
> [0] http://vamos1.informatik.uni-erlangen.de
> --
> (λ x . x x) (λ x . x x) -- See how beatiful the lambda is
> No documentation is better than bad documentation
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