Re: [PATCH 2/4] mm: cma: Contiguous Memory Allocator added

[Daniel Walker <dwalker@codeaurora.org>]

On Wed, 2010-07-21 at 21:21 +0200, Michał Nazarewicz wrote:
> On Wed, 21 Jul 2010 20:58:08 +0200, Daniel Walker <dwalker@codeaurora.org> wrote:
> 
> > On Wed, 2010-07-21 at 20:38 +0200, Michał Nazarewicz wrote:
> >> > On Wed, 2010-07-21 at 20:11 +0200, Michał Nazarewicz wrote:
> >> >> Not really.  This will probably be used mostly on embedded systems
> >> >> where users don't have much to say as far as hardware included on the
> >> >> platform is concerned, etc.  Once a phone, tablet, etc. is released
> >> >> users will have little need for customising those strings.
> >>
> >> On Wed, 21 Jul 2010 20:19:08 +0200, Daniel Walker <dwalker@codeaurora.org> wrote:
> >> > You can't assume that user won't want to reflash their own kernel on the
> >> > device. Your assuming way too much.
> >>
> >> If user is clever enough to reflash a phone she will find the strings
> >> easy especially that they are provided from: (i) bootloader which is
> >> even less likely to be reflashed and if someone do reflash bootloader
> >> she is a guru who'd know how to make the strings; or (ii) platform
> >> defaults which will be available with the rest of the source code
> >> for the platform.
> >
> > Your, again, assuming all sorts of stuff .. On my phone for example it
> > is very easy to reflash, personally, I think most devices will be like
> > that in the future. so you don't _need_ to be clever to reflash the
> > device.
> 
> Bottom line is: if you reflash the device you (i) get an image from
> somewhere and it has the strings in it, (ii) reflash the kernel and
> parameters are provided by bootloader so they still remain, (iii)
> use platform default strings which you get with the source codes and
> include when kernel is built, or (iv) are a guru who knows what to
> do.

What makes you assume that the bootloader would have these strings?
Do your devices have these strings? Maybe mine don't have them.

Assume the strings are gone and you can't find them, or have no idea
what they should be. What do you do then?

> >> > If you assume they do want their own kernel then they would need this
> >> > string from someplace. If your right and this wouldn't need to change,
> >> > why bother allowing it to be configured at all ?
> >>
> >> Imagine a developer who needs to recompile the kernel and reflash the
> >> device each time she wants to change the configuration...  Command line
> >> arguments seems a better option for development.
> >
> > So make it a default off debug configuration option ..
> 
> I don't really see the point of doing that.  Adding the command line
> parameters is really a minor cost so there will be no benefits from
> removing it.

Well, I like my kernel minus bloat so that's a good reason. I don't see
a good reason to keep the interface in a production situation .. Maybe
during development , but really I don't see even a developer needing to
make the kind of changes your suggesting very often.

Daniel

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The Qualcomm Innovation Center, Inc. is a member of the Code Aurora Forum.