From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1756008Ab2GMVDA (ORCPT ); Fri, 13 Jul 2012 17:03:00 -0400 Received: from mx1.redhat.com ([209.132.183.28]:45396 "EHLO mx1.redhat.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1753737Ab2GMVC7 (ORCPT ); Fri, 13 Jul 2012 17:02:59 -0400 Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2012 17:02:40 -0400 From: Dave Jones To: Linus Torvalds Cc: Greg Kroah-Hartman , Ubuntu Kernel Team , Debian Kernel Team , OpenSUSE Kernel Team , Linux Kernel Mailing List , Fedora Kernel Team Subject: Re: [RFC] Simplifying kernel configuration for distro issues Message-ID: <20120713210240.GG1707@redhat.com> Mail-Followup-To: Dave Jones , Linus Torvalds , Greg Kroah-Hartman , Ubuntu Kernel Team , Debian Kernel Team , OpenSUSE Kernel Team , Linux Kernel Mailing List , Fedora Kernel Team References: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.21 (2010-09-15) Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Fri, Jul 13, 2012 at 01:37:41PM -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote: > The point I'm slowly getting to is that I would actually love to have > *distro* Kconfig-files, where the distribution would be able to say > "These are the minimums I *require* to work". As long as you don't mind these being added after the fact, I suppose it would be workable. The reason I say that is sometimes, it even catches *us* by surprise. We recently found out our virtualisation guys started using sch_htb for example, and we inadvertantly broke it when we moved its module to a 'not always installed' kernel subpackage. (and before that, 9PFS..) People don't tell us anything, but somehow expect things to keep working. > In addition to the "minimal distro settings", we might also have a few > "common platform" settings, so that you could basically do a "hey, I > have a modern PC laptop, make it pick the obvious stuff that a normal > person needs, like USB storage, FAT/VFAT support, the core power > management etc". I wish defconfig was actually something useful like this, instead of.. what the hell is it exactly ? No-one even seems to agree, other than "random selection of options, many of which were removed n years ago" Dave