Re: mainlining min-configs...

[Tim Bird <tim.bird@am.sony.com>]

Adrian Bunk wrote:
> But if you want to discover size change with minimal configs early you 
> anyway have to both:
> - constantly keep your configs in shape so that they are both minimal
>   for some set of hardware support and features and
> - investigate for any size changes what caused them
>   (experience has shown that putting information on a webpage doesn't
>    fix problems - even for compile errors).
Amen to that last point!

> 
> You need both, and ideally constantly done by the same person against 
> Linus' tree, -next and -mm.
> 
> Where to get your minimal configs from at the start is just a small 
> thing at the beginning - don't underestimate the required manual work 
> that will have to be done each week.

This is probably why I haven't signed up for this myself previously.
I'd be interested in finding out the rate at which defconfigs
bitrot in mainline.  My experience is that usually a 'make oldconfig'
will produce something usable.  But maybe that wouldn't be as
effective with a minconfig?

Maybe I'll collect some minconfigs, and try maintaining them
in my own tree for a few releases to see how onerous it is...
The problem is that I can only reasonably do this for boards
I have, so there'd only be a few.  But maybe that'd be enough.
They would really only be meant as examples.
 -- Tim


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Tim Bird
Architecture Group Chair, CE Linux Forum
Senior Staff Engineer, Sony Corporation of America
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