linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] block: Remove obsolete configs BLK_MQ

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Message-ID: <CAOc5a3M2Nvv0oREzWN_kzOJqt4s+0zzmqWdG4tM58RJSWAb4BQ@mail.gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 14 May 2025 09:28:59 +0200
From: Lukas Bulwahn <lbulwahn@...hat.com>
To: Daniel Wagner <dwagner@...e.de>
Cc: Jens Axboe <axboe@...nel.dk>, Daniel Wagner <wagi@...nel.org>, Christoph Hellwig <hch@....de>, 
	Hannes Reinecke <hare@...e.de>, Ming Lei <ming.lei@...hat.com>, John Garry <john.g.garry@...cle.com>, 
	linux-block@...r.kernel.org, kernel-janitors@...r.kernel.org, 
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, Lukas Bulwahn <lukas.bulwahn@...hat.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] block: Remove obsolete configs BLK_MQ_{PCI,VIRTIO}

On Wed, May 14, 2025 at 9:10 AM Daniel Wagner <dwagner@...e.de> wrote:
>
> On Wed, May 14, 2025 at 08:55:13AM +0200, Lukas Bulwahn wrote:
> > From: Lukas Bulwahn <lukas.bulwahn@...hat.com>
> >
> > Commit 9bc1e897a821 ("blk-mq: remove unused queue mapping helpers") makes
> > the two config options, BLK_MQ_PCI and BLK_MQ_VIRTIO, have no remaining
> > effect.
> >
> > Remove the two obsolete config options.
>
> A quick grep revealed that there is at least a test config still in the
> tree which uses BLK_MQ_VIRTIO:
>
> drivers/gpu/drm/ci/x86_64.config
> 108:CONFIG_BLK_MQ_VIRTIO=y
>
> Not sure how this is supposed to be handled.
>

I noticed that as well, but that is really yet another clean up.

Generally, these config files in the kernel tree are ill designed and
terribly maintained.

They are ill designed, because when they are created, they are dropped
as complete kernel configurations, whereas they intend to set a
specific fragment of options, and have the rest as default. That
creates needless large files, distracts from what is important in
those files, and creates some record of the default of various options
at this random point of time where the config was created, which now
makes the clean-up pretty complicated.

They are terribly maintained, i.e., the command
./scripts/checkkconfigsymbols.py | grep "configs" -B 1, will show all
the references to config options in those config files, for config
options that do not exist anymore in the current tree. In the current
linux-next tree, there are over 200 references to non-existing config
options from such config files. At this point, I do not worry about
adding one more such reference in one of those files.

This whole proper clean-up of those files is a larger project, though;
maybe for some later day.

Lukas

> > Signed-off-by: Lukas Bulwahn <lukas.bulwahn@...hat.com>
>
> Reviewed-by: Daniel Wagner <dwagner@...e.de>
>