Re: [RFC PATCH v4 01/22] bootconfig: Add Extra Boot Config support

Geert Uytterhoeven
2020-02-06T09:08:35Z

Hi Steven,

On Mon, Dec 9, 2019 at 4:55 PM Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org> wrote:
> On Mon, 9 Dec 2019 14:50:09 +0900
> Masami Hiramatsu <mhiramat@kernel.org> wrote:
> > On Sun, 8 Dec 2019 11:34:32 -0800
> > Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@infradead.org> wrote:
> > > On 12/2/19 2:13 AM, Masami Hiramatsu wrote:
> > > > diff --git a/init/Kconfig b/init/Kconfig
> > > > index 67a602ee17f1..13bb3eac804c 100644
> > > > --- a/init/Kconfig
> > > > +++ b/init/Kconfig
> > > > @@ -1235,6 +1235,17 @@ source "usr/Kconfig"
> > > >
> > > > endif
> > > >
> > > > +config BOOT_CONFIG
> > > > + bool "Boot config support"
> > > > + select LIBXBC
> > > > + default y
> > >
> > > questionable "default y".
> > > That needs lots of justification.
> >
> > OK, I can make it 'n' by default.
> >
> > I thought that was OK because most of the memories for the
> > bootconfig support were released after initialization.
> > If user doesn't pass the bootconfig, only the code for
> > /proc/bootconfig remains on runtime memory.
>
> As 'n' is usually the default, I will argue this should be 'y'!
>
> This is not some new fancy feature, or device that Linus
> complains about "my X is important!". I will say this X *is* important!
> This will (I hope) become standard in all kernel configs. One could even
> argue that there shouldn't even be a config for this at all (forced
> 'y'). This would hurt more not to have than to have. I would hate to
> try to load special options only to find out that the kernel was
> compiled with default configs and this wasn't enabled.

Let's bite ;-)

If one could even argue that there shouldn't even be a config for this
at all, then why are there two? There's a visible BOOT_CONFIG config,
and an invisible LIBXBC config.

Are there other users planned for LIBXBC?

Thanks!

Gr{oetje,eeting}s,

Geert

--
Geert Uytterhoeven -- There's lots of Linux beyond ia32 -- geert@linux-m68k.org

In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But
when I'm talking to journalists I just say "programmer" or something like that.
-- Linus Torvalds