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Re: xxxVERBOSE module?



On Thu, 20 May 2010, David Young wrote:

On Wed, May 19, 2010 at 08:52:52PM -0700, Paul Goyette wrote:
From the comments in the GENERIC config files, the primary reason
for omitting the various xxxVERBOSE options is to avoid including
large text tables in the resulting kernel.  And I vaguely recall
some spirited discussion back when the change was made to exclude
these options by default.

Now that we have MODULAR kernels (at least on some architectures),
I've been wondering if it might make sense to create a mod_verbose
that could be loaded during start-up time and then unloaded after
the machine is up and running.  (For plug-and-play situations, such
as USB, the module could be reloaded and unloaded whenever a new
device is added.)

Is this something that would be useful?

Yes, it would be.  ...

Kewl - I plan on starting with PCIVERBOSE, followed closely with USB.

...  Just an idea: we may get a lot of mileage out of a
generic method for adding or augmenting, and removing kernel property
lists from a kernel, either at run- or compile-time.

Consider that much of the VERBOSE info is in tabular form, thus
expressible by property list.  So are PCI/USB/... vendor/product tables
that we use to match drivers with devices---I wish we could change
those tables without recompiling.  I anticipate using property lists
to express device locators.  So it seems to me that "linking" property
lists into the kernel could be very useful.

Great idea, but I think I'll save that for a future time when I have a bit more free time!


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