Re: HEADS UP: panic behaviour changed

[Robert Elz <kre%munnari.OZ.AU@localhost>]

    Date:        Sat, 31 Jan 2009 17:25:51 +0100
    From:        Joerg Sonnenberger <joerg%britannica.bec.de@localhost>
    Message-ID:  <20090131162551.GB680%britannica.bec.de@localhost>

  | I disagree. I find the change more annoying than helpful. I especially
  | don't buy the X argument as that works fine here.

I think you're discussing a different issue - but I do agree that the
reasons for the change (as given) weren't the best that could have been
expressed.

But if your issue is that the default should be for ddb.onpanic == 1
then the right way to achieve that is to put

        options DDB_ONPANIC=1

into conf/GENERIC (and other files as appropriate), rather than by making
the option automatically set itself if the config file doesn't sent it.

I have no particular opinion on which default is better, nor do I really
care, I build my own kernels anyway and set the options the way I like them.
I would assume that most people here can (and should) do the same.

So, which is the default as distributed really applies (or should apply)
to those regular users who don't build their own kernels, and just keep
running GENERIC (personally, I think that should amount to no-one at all,
so I don't think this is a very important issue.)

Lastly, even though the option can trivially be set in sysctl.conf
the value of its default setting in the kernel config does matter, as
there's a period between boot, and when sysctl.conf is read, where only
the default setting can possibly be applied.

So, set the defauult whichever way you believe is correct, but do that in
the config file, not by some slight of hand in the var init that turns
"no-one bothered to set this option" into "that implies it must be set"
which is what got changed here, correctly.

kre