linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] mm/gup_benchmark: GUP_BENCHMARK depends on DEBUG

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Date:   Sat, 7 Nov 2020 20:11:57 -0800
From:   Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@...radead.org>
To:     John Hubbard <jhubbard@...dia.com>,
        "Song Bao Hua (Barry Song)" <song.bao.hua@...ilicon.com>,
        "akpm@...ux-foundation.org" <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
        "linux-mm@...ck.org" <linux-mm@...ck.org>,
        "linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org" <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Cc:     Linuxarm <linuxarm@...wei.com>,
        Ralph Campbell <rcampbell@...dia.com>,
        John Garry <john.garry@...wei.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] mm/gup_benchmark: GUP_BENCHMARK depends on DEBUG_FS

On 11/7/20 7:22 PM, John Hubbard wrote:
> On 11/7/20 7:14 PM, John Hubbard wrote:
>> On 11/7/20 6:58 PM, Song Bao Hua (Barry Song) wrote:
>>>> On 11/7/20 2:20 PM, Randy Dunlap wrote:
>>>>> On 11/7/20 11:16 AM, John Hubbard wrote:
>>>>>> On 11/7/20 11:05 AM, Song Bao Hua (Barry Song) wrote:
>>>>>>>> From: John Hubbard [mailto:jhubbard@...dia.com]
>>>>>> ...
>>>> But if you really disagree, then I'd go with, just drop the patch entirely, because
>>>> it doesn't really make things better as written...IMHO anyway. :)
>>>
>>> Just imagine a case, we don't enable DEBUG_FS but we enable GUP_TEST, we will
>>> get an image with totally useless code section since GUP_TEST depends on debugfs
>>> entry to perform any useful functionality.
>>>
>>
>> Looking at the choices, from the user's (usually kernel developer's) experience:
>>
>> a) The user enables GUP_TEST, then boots up, runs, and is briefly surprised by a
>> runtime failure. But it's a very quick diagnosis: "open: No such file or directory",
>> when trying to make that ioctl call. The path indicates that it's a debug fs path,
>> so the solution is pretty clear, at least for the main audience.
>>
>> b) The other choice: the user *never even sees* GUP_TEST as a choice. This especially
>> bothers me because sometimes you find things by poking around in the menu, although
>> of course "you should already know about it"...but there's a lot to "already know"
>> in a large kernel.
>>
>>  From a user experience, it's way better to simply see what you want, and select it
>> in the menu. Or, at least get some prompt that you need to pre-select something else.
>>
> 
> ...and again, this is all fallout from Kconfig. I might be missing some advanced
> feature, because it seems surprising to only be allowed to choose between
> missing dependencies (which this patch would correct), or a poorer user experience
> (which I argue that this patch would also provide).
> 
> Ideally, we'd just set up the dependencies, and then have some options for
> visibility, but I'm not aware of any way to do that...and after a quick peek
> at Documentation/kbuild/kconfig-macro-language.rst it looks pretty bare bones.

Look at kconfig-language.rst instead.

One thing that could be done (and is done in a few places for other reasons) is to add
a Kconfig comment if DEBUG_FS is not enabled:

comment "GUP_TEST needs to have DEBUG_FS enabled"
	depends on !GUP_TEST && !DEBUG_FS

e.g. drivers/hid/usbhid/Kconfig:

comment "Input core support is needed for USB HID input layer or HIDBP support"
	depends on USB_HID && INPUT=n


-- 
~Randy