linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] kconfig: untangle EXPERT and EMBEDDED

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Message-Id: <201201120918.53026.arnd@arndb.de>
Date:	Thu, 12 Jan 2012 09:18:52 +0000
From:	Arnd Bergmann <arnd@...db.de>
To:	David Rientjes <rientjes@...gle.com>
Cc:	Andrew Jones <drjones@...hat.com>, akpm@...ux-foundation.org,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, mingo@...e.hu,
	david.woodhouse@...el.com, gregkh@...e.de, davem@...emloft.net,
	axboe@...nel.dk, holt@....com, linux-arch@...r.kernel.org,
	linux@....linux.org.uk, hskinnemoen@...il.com,
	egtvedt@...fundet.no, msalter@...hat.com, a-jacquiot@...com,
	starvik@...s.com, jesper.nilsson@...s.com, dhowells@...hat.com,
	takata@...ux-m32r.org, geert@...ux-m68k.org,
	yasutake.koichi@...panasonic.com, jonas@...thpole.se,
	kyle@...artin.ca, deller@....de, jejb@...isc-linux.org,
	chris@...kel.net, greg@...ah.com, davej@...hat.com,
	airlied@...ux.ie, jkosina@...e.cz, mchehab@...radead.org,
	johannes@...solutions.net, linville@...driver.com
Subject: Re: [PATCH] kconfig: untangle EXPERT and EMBEDDED

On Wednesday 11 January 2012, David Rientjes wrote:
> We discussed this when the patch was made to change EMBEDDED to EXPERT and 
> we knew that things like CONFIG_SLOB exist that would only make sense on a 
> platform with a very small memory footprint.  So what criteria are you 
> using to determine what makes sense for EMBEDDED or not and what would be 
> generally useful for platforms with very small memory footprints?
> 
> I would think that something like CONFIG_SMALLMEM would identify those 
> candidates (for things like SLOB) and then you could separate the rest 
> based on the platform they exist for since you're essentially introducing 
> a new config symbol here that existed in the past but are now using it 
> with different semantics.

The CONFIG_SMALLMEM would also require people to know what they are doing,
beyond what we expect the average person building a kernel to, which is
just what CONFIG_EXPERT means, and the same reason why we ended up renaming
CONFIG_EMBEDDED to CONFIG_EXPERT. People have a very different understanding
of what "embedded" actually means, and not all of those require small
memory footprint or even a custom kernel. Let's just stay with CONFIG_EXPERT.

	Arnd
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