Re: Please read if you use x86 -current

[Stephen Borrill <netbsd%precedence.co.uk@localhost>]

On Thu, 13 Nov 2008, Antti Kantee wrote:
[snip]
> So, I think I like the Linux approach where you can decide in
> your config file if you want something as a module or not at all.
> Then just integrate module building with kernel building and that's it.

As smb said:
        module foo
        module bar

This sounds good to me.

> GENERIC has everything on as modules and GARGANTUA has everything built-in
> (preferably sharing some config aspects).

At its very simplest either:
sed 's/^module/options/' GENERIC > GARGANTUA
or:
grep -v "^module" GENERIC > GARGANTUA

The latter if config format is along the lines of:
mfi*    at pci? dev ? function ?        # LSI MegaRAID SAS
module mfi

Of course GENERIC could just be:
include "arch/i386/conf/ALL"
include "arch/i386/conf/modular"
where modular just contains:
module mfi
module wm
module foo
module bar

As long as config didn't barf if a module line existed that refered to a 
non-existent config option, then just including modular would make any 
kernel config fully modular.

> Considering that the new-style
> modules don't have any code path differences between built-in and module,
> I think we can support both.  Although it's a bit of a strech for me,
> I'm willing to try to see why people want monolithic gunk - sometimes
> it's just more practical (cf. static linking).

I use a single monolithic kernel (with embedded ramdisk) which is 
basically the whole system capable of upgrading itself from ftp, tftp or 
http and runnable from tftp/pxe, ffs, fat, ntfs, ext2fs, cd9660, etc. I 
guess it would be fine to pull in audio drivers when needed, but I'd want 
the rest included.

--
Stephen