[PATCH 0/4] ARM: mvebu: minor Armada 370 RD improvements

Jason Cooper
2014-09-11T14:26:55Z

merf. It helps if I actually _add_ Ian to the Cc. :)

On Thu, Sep 11, 2014 at 10:26:01AM -0400, Jason Cooper wrote:
> +Ian
>
> On Thu, Sep 11, 2014 at 04:00:00PM +0200, Thomas Petazzoni wrote:
> > On Thu, 11 Sep 2014 15:43:23 +0200, Andrew Lunn wrote:
> > > A point for discussion, triggered by 3/4. We have repeatedly seen
> > > issues with modular builds, which we don't see with everything built
> > > in. Can we improve our testing? Is there is way to take for example
> > > mvebu_v7_defconfig and turn any y tristate options into m? Build and
> > > boot? Get this added to the boot test farms?
> >
> > I indeed agree that we are not testing much the modular case, but:
> >
> > 1/ In my case, a mvebu_v7_defconfig where most the stuff would become
> > enabled as a module would make mvebu_v7_defconfig pretty much
> > useless for my daily work. When I'm doing active development, I
> > typically have everything built-in including the initramfs itself,
> > so that I don't rely on any storage/network to get the rootfs and
> > additional kernel drivers.
> >
> > 2/ I don't think it would change much in terms of runtime coverage:
> > the tests done on the boot farm are just boot tests, I don't think
> > they load any kernel module. We could ask Kevin and Olof what
> > rootfs they use, but most likely it's some very small rootfs that
> > doesn't even have udev/mdev for automatic module loading. So no
> > module would be loaded, which would mean that a mvebu_v7_defconfig
> > with everything as a module would actually test *less* thing than a
> > configuration that has everything built in.
> >
> > So, I agree on the observation, but I'm unsure the proposed solution
> > will really solve or even improve the situation :/
>
> Since debian does modular builds on a regular basis, maybe they have
> some recommendations.
>
> My thought is that I doubt we're the only SoC family with this issue.
> To avoid the maintenance headache of extra _mod_defconfig's, perhaps we
> could add a ./scripts/config toggle to turn the current .config enabled
> tristates into modules?
>
> thx,
>
> Jason.