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Date:      Sun, 30 Oct 2005 20:05:10 -0800
From:      "David O'Brien" <obrien@FreeBSD.org>
To:        Scott Long <scottl@samsco.org>
Cc:        cvs-src@FreeBSD.org, src-committers@FreeBSD.org, cvs-all@FreeBSD.org, John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org>
Subject:   Re: cvs commit: src/sys/i386/conf DEFAULTS GENERIC
Message-ID:  <20051031040510.GA9249@dragon.NUXI.org>
In-Reply-To: <4364D017.1050605@samsco.org>
References:  <200510271734.j9RHYZAk015054@repoman.freebsd.org> <20051030062148.GA76667@dragon.NUXI.org> <4364D017.1050605@samsco.org>

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On Sun, Oct 30, 2005 at 06:52:23AM -0700, Scott Long wrote:
> >I may be missing something.  I don't quite follow the benefit of the new
> >'DEFAULTS' file.
> 
> It's been 2+ years since the io and mem devices were made optional, and 
> the mailing lists are still filled with people who don't understand why
> X doesn't work after they remove them from their kernel config.  We 
> expect there to be a large migration of people from 4.x to 6.0 who
> never tracked the change in 5.x, or who want to bring their 4.x kernel
> config files over with as few surprises as possible, so this will make
> their lives easier.
...
> If you delete the DEFAULTS file then config will silently be happy, 
> though you'll need to manually add the isa and npx devices to your
> kernel config.  You can also use the 'nodevice' directives to manually
> exclude the io and mem devices from your config.  Contrary to Mark's
> response, I'd recommend doing this instead of editing DEFAULTS directly.

I guess I feel that anyone that thinks they can take a kernel config from
4.x or 5.x and use it in 6.0 w/out researching what's changed gets what
they deserve.  These people should just run GENERIC.  Same for people
deleting lines willy nilly with out understanding what they are cutting
out of GENERIC.  Maybe we should force the use of modules and have the
GENERIC kernel only be things that cannot be built as a module - much as
other Unixes do.

I think with separating the kernel config pieces into more files makes it
more work for those paying attention to keep track of.  I track changes
to GENERIC to know what to add to my FOO config file, but now there are
multiple places one has to track.  Not tracking changes to 'DEFAULTS' is
now quite dangerous as we have a history of panicing if a kernel module
is loaded when the same subsystem is statically compiled into the kernel
KO.

I hope we can take a very conservative approach of what to place in
'DEFAUTLS', and carefully weigh changes to 'DEFAULTS'.

-- 
-- David  (obrien@FreeBSD.org)



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